Britain on Thursday paid homage to Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team, which made it to the South Pole on January 18, 1912 only to learn they had been beaten by the Norwegian explorers, led by Roald Amundsen.
The team perished on its way back from the South Pole and Scott wrote his last diary entry on March 29, 1912. A memorial service was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral to pay tribute to the courage of the polar explorer and the men who died on the British Terra Nova Expedition.
The service was attended by will be attended by Princess Anne, who read a lesson; broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, who read an extract from the final diary entry of Captain Scott; and the Bishop of London, who gave the sermon.
The UK government was represented by foreign secretary William Hague.
The service was also be attended by many descendants of Captain Scott’s team, some of whom laid a memorial wreath at the commemorative plaque to Scott in the cathedral.
A British doctor from Oxford, Alexander Kumar, who is half-Indian, is spending a night facing the same conditions in Antarctica on Thursday to mark the Scott centenary.
Dr Kumar, who is currently working at the Concordia station in Antarctica for the European Space Agency, along with two colleagues will spend Thursday night sleeping outside in a tent in temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees centigrade.