Captain Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates (17 March 188017 March 1912) was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died during the "Terra Nova" Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death for himself in order to relieve them of the burden of caring for him.