SEPTEMBER 21, 1930: ALFRED WEGENER BEGINS A FATEFUL POLAR EXPEDITION.

The article narrates German meteorologist Alfred Wegener's last expedition on September 21, 1930 to study polar air circulation over Greenland's ice cap. Born in 1880, Wegener was the author of the continental drift hypothesis, the basis for the plate tectonics theory. He was a world endurance record breaker in 1906 as a hot air balloonist, earning him his first polar expedition. He traveled to the Arctic on four expeditions, including the 1912 four-man expedition that enabled him to publish several volumes on meteorology and glaciology of Greenland.