The importance of the polar regions to solving many of the fundamental problems in geophysics, including climatology and meteorology, was recognized by Austrian explorer Lt. Karl Weyprecht, scientist and co-commander with Lt. Julius von Payer of the Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition of 1872–1874. He realized that the many private expeditions conducted previously would not suffice to provide the data needed to understand nature on a larger scale. During his long overwintering while stranded on the sea ice of the Barents Sea, Weyprecht contemplated the self-serving folly of frivolous polar nations and their generally unproductive scientific pursuits. The key to success in achieving a greater understanding of geophysical phenomena, he envisioned, was to be found in an effort of international science cooperation, working together at greater efficiency. Weyprecht believed that gathering scientific data was the only justification for costly expeditions in the high arctic regions, a process which could be best carried out by nations working in collaboration with each other. He began to advocate the scientific exploitation of newly discovered regions by setting up a chain of circumpolar stations for observations of magnetism, meteorology, and geodesy. Weyprecht’s ideas were presented to the 1873 meeting of the Association of German Naturalists and Physicists, which impressed Prince Otto von Bismarck sufficiently to appoint a commission to study the prospect. Success was not immediate due to other international political agendas, but at the 54 th International Meteorological Congress in Rome in 1879, Weyprecht’s vision for an International Polar Year took form. IPY-1 was not an easy birth, and the sought-after participation of the United States failed. However, at the second International Polar Conference held at Berne in 1880, the first