The Explorers: A Century of Discovery Page #3

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or death over his 22,000 subjects.

Like Shangri-la,

Muli knew little of the outside world.

Rock was told he was

the first American ever to come here.

Summoning Rock to his place,

the King of Muli politely

asked the explorer

if the could ride horseback

to Washington.

He treated Rock kindly,

offering him delicacies

like ancient yak cheese

and mutton crawling with maggots.

By the 1920s the unexplored parts

of the world were rapidly shrinking.

But man's past was like

a hidden continent.

And in 1922 the entrance to

a royal Egyptian tomb was found.

Archeologist Howard Carter and

his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon,

Announced they would open the burial

chamber officially on February 18, 1923

"Can you see anything?"

Lord Carnarvon had asked Carter

when he first looked inside

the tomb three months earlier.

"Yes", Carter had replied.

"I see wonderful things".

It was the tomb of Tutahkhamun.

Nothing like it had been found before

or since a time capsule 3300 years old.

By the end of the 1920s,

National Geographic was prepared

to sponsor major expeditions.

It subscribed $50,000 toward

Richard Byrd's attempt

to fly to the South Pole.

Byrd's ship left New Zealand

in December 1928,

still summer in the Antarctic.

According to Byrd's elaborate plan,

the party would land in Antarctica

and dig in for the winter.

When weather improved in the spring,

he'd attempt the 800mile flight to the

pole over largely unknown territory.

An advance party prepared to travel

overland more than halfway to the pole

They would make geological studies

and stand by to rescue Byrd

if his plane was forced down.

The expedition not only survived

the winter, it prospered.

There were nearly 100 dogs

when the sun set in April.

By August there were many more.

The six men in

the Geological Party departed.

They would be gone almost three months

Byrd planned to drop an American flag

to mark the spot

when he reached the pole.

On November 28, 1929,

a full year after leaving New Zealand,

Byrd decided to go.

A film camera went along and

months later audiences in Washington

would see this movie

of Byrd's adventure.

There they are at the South Pole.

The observations click.

It is 1:
25 in the morning

of November 29th, 1929.

Dick takes out the flag,

weighted with a stone

from Floyd Bennett's grave.

It is the symbol and the monument

of a supreme accomplishment.

Through the trap door the flag

and stone drop together.

There they go down, down forever

at the very bottom of the world.

A nation plunging into

the Great Depression

still gave Richard Byrd

a glorious welcome home.

He received his second

National Geographic modal

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