Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874–1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer, born in County Kildare, who went to sea at sixteen. He joined Scott's Discovery expedition in 1901, led his own Nimrod expedition in 1907–09 to within ninety-seven miles of the South Pole and was knighted on his return, and in 1914 set out to cross Antarctica. The Endurance was crushed in the ice, and his leadership of the twenty-eight men through two years on the floes, the boat journey to South Georgia and their eventual rescue, told in South (1919), made him a legend. He died of a heart attack at South Georgia on a fourth expedition.