The Antarctic explorer who lost his ship to the ice, then pulled off one of history's greatest rescues — bringing every single one of his 28 men home alive.
Ernest Shackleton was born in Ireland in 1874 and went to sea as a teenager, eventually joining Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition in 1901. He was sent home early due to health concerns — a humiliation that fueled his determination to become the greatest polar explorer of his age.
On his Nimrod Expedition (1907–1909), Shackleton's team trekked to within 97 miles of the South Pole — closer than anyone had ever been. They turned back rather than risk starvation, a decision Shackleton later defended: 'A live donkey is better than a dead lion.'
His 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aimed to cross Antarctica from sea to sea. When his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and sank, Shackleton faced an impossible situation: 28 men stranded on the ice with no rescue coming.
After months on the ice, Shackleton launched three lifeboats and reached remote Elephant Island — the first time the crew had stood on solid ground in nearly 500 days. But Elephant Island was far from any shipping lane, and no one knew where they were.
Shackleton and five men then sailed 800 miles across the world's most treacherous ocean in an open 22-foot lifeboat called the James Caird. Navigating by stars and a sextant, they reached South Georgia Island in 17 days — a feat considered nearly impossible.
Landing on the wrong side of South Georgia, Shackleton and two companions crossed the island's unmapped glaciers and mountain ridges on foot — a route so difficult it wasn't successfully repeated until 1955. They reached the whaling station at Stromness and organized the rescue.
Every single one of Shackleton's 28 men was rescued by August 1916. He later served in World War I advising on Arctic military logistics, and died of a heart attack in 1922 aboard his ship near South Georgia — the island where his greatest triumph had taken place. He was 47.