Short answers, pulled from the story.
Severnaya Zemlya was first discovered on the 3rd of September 1913 by Boris Vilkitsky's Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition aboard the icebreakers Taimyr and Vaigach. The first detailed map of the archipelago was completed during Georgy Ushakov's two-year survey expedition of 1930-1932, making it the last sizeable archipelago on Earth to be discovered and mapped.
The Academy of Sciences Glacier on Komsomolets Island is the largest ice cap in Russia. It covers about two-thirds of Komsomolets Island, measures 5,575 square kilometers in area, reaches 819 meters in thickness, and rises to 749 meters above sea level.
In early 1914, by order of the Secretary of the Imperial Navy, the newly discovered archipelago was renamed Emperor Nicholas II Land in honour of the reigning Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The name replaced the expedition's original choice, Tayvay Land. In 1926, the Soviet government renamed it Severnaya Zemlya, meaning Northern Land.
Georgy Ushakov led the first thorough survey of Severnaya Zemlya, accompanied by geologist Nikolay Urvantsev, surveyor Sergei Zhuravlev, and radio-operator Vasily Khodov. The team based themselves at Golomyanny on Sredniy Island and conducted a two-year expedition starting in the spring of 1931, producing the first detailed map of the archipelago.
October Revolution Island is the largest island in the Severnaya Zemlya group, with an estimated area of 14,170 square kilometers, making it the 59th largest island in the world. It is also home to the archipelago's highest point, the 965-meter Mount Karpinsky, and contains seven individual glaciers.
Severnaya Zemlya inspired the name of a secret Russian facility called Severnaya in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, and appears as a level in the 1997 video game GoldenEye 007 based on that film. The discovery of the real archipelago is the subject of Veniamin Kaverin's novel The Two Captains and its stage adaptation, Nord-Ost.