Peary vs Cook: Who Reached The North Pole First?

Very few discoveries in the world have been as passionately debated upon for a century as the first expedition to the North Pole. In 1909, two American explorers—Robert Edwin Peary Sr., United States Navy officer, and Frederick Albert Cook, physician and ethnographer—emerged from the Arctic, a few days apart.

- Nilofer Khan

They both claimed to have reached the North Pole before the other. In September 1909, two front-page articles were published in prominent newspapers discussing the discovery. The New York Times supported Peary’s claim and the New York Herald backed Cook. Incidentally, the image above depicts two of Cook’s team members with the U.S. flag at the expedition campsite, near the North Pole.