Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist and humanitarian. A zoologist whose early work on the nervous system anticipated the neuron theory, he made the first crossing of the Greenland ice cap in 1888 and from 1893 to 1896 let the Fram drift frozen in the Arctic pack, leaving the ship with Hjalmar Johansen to reach a farther north than anyone before them. He was professor of oceanography in Oslo, a leader in Norway's separation from Sweden in 1905 and its first minister in London, and as the League of Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees he devised the Nansen passport. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.