Alfred Lothar Wegener was born in Berlin on 1 November 1880, as the youngest of five children. His father, Richard Wegener, was a theologian and teacher of classical languages. Alfred attended school at the Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin, graduating as the best of his class. He went on to study physics, meteorology and astronomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Innsbruck. He obtained a doctorate in astronomy in 1905 at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. Alfred had always maintained a strong interest in the developing fields of meteorology and climatology and decided to focus his studies on these subjects. In 1906, Alfred participated in the first of his four Greenland expeditions; he later regarded this experience as a decisive turning point in his life. It was during this expedition that he constructed the first meteorological station in Greenland, where he launched kites and balloons to take meteorological measurements in the Artic climatic zone. After his return in 1908 an...