Baron Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangel

...was born in 1794 in Pskov, to a family of German heritage. He attended the Naval Cadets College and went on to be one of Russia’s most accomplished explorers, a naval admiral, an Honorable Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, and one of the founders of the Russian Geographic Society. He led an expedition that charted much of Russia’s northern coastline and, from 1829 to 1835, was Governor of Russian lands in Alaska, where today there are many geographic features named for him. He was naval minister from 1855–1857 and Wrangel Island was named for him in 1867. He died in 1870 on the family estate in Dorpat (now Tartu), Estonia.