During the first part of the 20th century, great lighter than airships were very popular and were seen as the future of aviation. This is the stroy of 2 polar explorations that used these airships to explore the arctic. The first was a ship lead by Amundson to go to the North pole. This was an italian built ship so the Italian government under Mussilini used it a propganda device, not to the liking of the Norwegian crew that were the actual explorers of this ship.
The second air ship is the Italia which was an Italian government sponsored exploration, lead by the italian Umberto Nobile who was on the first ship in a minor role, but managed to leverage his participation to lead the expedition. This second air ship had a much more ambitious arctic exploration agenda, but ended in tragedy when the ship crashed in the far north and many of the crew perished. Nobile was rescued and while he was a hero in Italy, many others blamed him for the failure of the ship and the lives lost.
