Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960) was a famed paleontologist, explorer, and naturalist. While in the employ of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he led numerous expeditions in the 1920s to Mongolia and China, where he discovered fossils of several new mammal and dinosaur species (including Protoceratops and Velociraptor) as well as the first known fossilized dinosaur eggs. Andrews eventually became the Director of the museum.
He was proficient with firearms and needed to be, as his expeditions were conducted under hazardous conditions and often featured encounters with hostile Mongolian brigands. His descriptions of his adventures led to the stereotyping use of "Outer Mongolia" in cartoons and other examples of pop culture as a synonym for an extraordinarily remote area of the earth.
Many film experts believe that Andrews was the inspiration for Indiana Jones, although this rumor has never been officially confirmed by George Lucas. Andrews certainly was the prototype for other similar explorers in various adventure movies of the 1930s and 1940s.
He was also a renowned author, and I can still recall the joy I experienced when I was seven years old and discovered his seminal work All About Dinosaurs at the public library in the small town in which I was raised.
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