the Arctic 1921: Wrangel Island Fiasco
31 October 1921
											
												31 Oct 1921
											
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
										
										
									
										
											Wrangel Island Fiasco
						
							
								9 Oct 1882 First International Polar Year
							
						
							
								5 Aug 1892 Opening up Greenland
							
						
							
								13 Jun 1898 Klondike Gold Rush
							
						
							
								7 Jun 1905 Norwegian Independence
							
						
							
								20 Aug 1905 Russo-Japanese War in the Far North
							
						
							
								6 Apr 1909 Race to the North Pole
							
						
							
								6 Apr 1917 Great War and the Arctic
							
						
							
								21 Aug 1918 Allied Intervention in Russia
							
						
							
								6 Apr 1920 Far Eastern Republic
							
						
							
								31 Oct 1921 Wrangel Island Fiasco
							
						
							
								20 Jan 1925 Soviet-Japanese Peace Treaty
							
						
							
								14 May 1926 Arctic Flights
							
						
							
								12 Jul 1932 Erik the Red's Land
							
						
					
				While Soviet Russia faced off against the Japanese in the Far East, the Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson led an expedition to attempt to claim uninhabited Wrangel Island for Canada and the British Empire. Stefansson's settlement lasted a little over a year before being replaced by an American effort, which was in turn dislodged when the Soviets reasserted their claim to the island in 1924.
