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Arctic Exploration

For Gilbert Grosvenor, running National Geographic was a legacy, motivated by a passion to leave the world a better place.

In the early 1950s, top secret efforts led to the first submarine trips to the North Pole by USS Nautilus and USS Skate in 1957 – dramatic successes that rivaled the Soviet Union's Sputnik that year – and shifted the balance of strategic power.

As the debate about rescuing them droned on and on, Lieutenant Greely’s men were dying one by one

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