Robert Peary's expedition claimed to reach the North Pole
On this day · 6 April 1909
On April 6, 1909, Robert Peary recorded reaching the North Pole, a triumph that historians now believe fell short.
On April 6, 1909, American naval engineer Robert E. Peary wrote in his diary that he had finally stood at the geographic North Pole, capping more than two decades of Arctic obsession. He was not alone: with him were his longtime collaborator Matthew Henson and four Inuit men, Ootah, Egingwah, Seeglo, and Ooqueah, without whom the dash across the sea ice would have been impossible.
The claim was instantly contested. A former colleague, Frederick Cook, insisted he had reached the Pole a year earlier. A National Geographic Society panel sided with Peary, and in 1911 the U.S. Congress formally recognized his feat.
Peary’s handwritten calculations and diary from that day now sit in the collections of the U.S. Capitol.
Modern analysis of his navigation has been less kind. Most historians now think Peary fell perhaps 30 miles short of the exact Pole, leaving one of exploration’s most famous “firsts” permanently in doubt.
Sources & references
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