Norge (airship)

On May 12, 1926, Norge carried Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and its Italian designer and pilot Umberto Nobile over the North Pole, with 16 men aboard in all, on a flight from Svalbard to Teller, Alaska. It was the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean by air. Many accounts also call it the first verified journey of any kind to the Pole, because earlier claims by sledge and by airplane are still disputed. And because Norge was built in Italy, it is a useful reminder that the airship story was never only about Zeppelins.