They had lost the race to the South Pole to Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team. Amundsen made it to the southernmost point on the planet about a month before Scott and his crew.

When Roald Amundsen set up his base camp in ... Haakon VII on special notepaper he had brought, "and a few words to Scott, who I presume will be the first to come here after us." ...

Eight months later a search party found the frozen corpses of Scott and his men. They were only 11 miles away from a food and fuel depot they had left on their trek out. Roald Amundsen lived to ...