In the 1840's, the Franklin expedition was the equivalent of the 1960's Apollo moon program,  it was the moon-shot of its day.  2 ships and 129 men with the most advanced technology of the time leaving the known world into the unknown.  Unfortunately, they succumbed to scurvy, starvation and lead poisoning caused by poorly soldered and cheap canned food. The food provisioner in London used lead to solder the inside seams of the cans to seal them, contaminating the contents.  The Royal Navy contracted the cheapest food supplier they could find and never even inspected the product or the facility where it was being produced.  "Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition" by by Owen Beattie and John Geiger is an excellent book on the subject.  They applied modern forensic techniques to discover the likely cause of the expedition's demise.