Editing North Pole (section)

===1900–1940===
[[File:Peary Sledge Party and Flags at the Pole.jpg|thumb|Peary's sledge party at what they claimed was the North Pole, 1909. From left: Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah, and Seeglo.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/pearyfrontis.html|title=At the North Pole, 6–7 April 1909: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web|publisher=Heritage.nf.ca|access-date=16 February 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522020627/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/pearyfrontis.html|archive-date=22 May 2013|df=dmy-all}}</ref>]]
The U.S. explorer [[Frederick Cook]] claimed to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 with two [[Inuit]] men, Ahwelah and Etukishook, but he was unable to produce convincing proof and his claim is not widely accepted.<ref>{{cite book | first=Robert | last=Bryce | title=Cook and Peary: the Polar Controversy Resolved | publisher=Stackpole | year=1997}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Henderson | first=B. | year=2005 | title=True North | publisher=W W Norton & Company | isbn=0-393-32738-8}}</ref>

The conquest of the North Pole was for many years credited to U.S. Navy engineer [[Robert Peary]], who claimed to have reached the Pole on 6 April 1909, accompanied by [[Matthew Henson]] and four Inuit men, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah. However, Peary's claim remains highly disputed and controversial. Those who accompanied Peary on the final stage of the journey were not trained in navigation, and thus could not independently confirm his navigational work, which some claim to have been particularly sloppy as he approached the Pole.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

[[File:PuckMagazine13Oct1909.jpg|thumb|Although heavily disputed by modern historians, Peary & his team were given credit for the discovery of the North Pole by the contemporary press.]]

The distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point. Peary's account of a journey to the Pole and back while traveling along the direct line&nbsp;– the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints that he was facing&nbsp;– is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid [[Pressure ridge (ice)|pressure ridge]]s and [[Lead (sea ice)|open lead]]s.

The  British explorer [[Wally Herbert]], initially a supporter of Peary, researched Peary's records in 1989 and found that there were significant discrepancies in the explorer's navigational records. He concluded that Peary had not reached the Pole.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-wally-herbert-453324.html |title=Sir Wally Herbert |work=The Independent |date=16 June 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224045237/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-wally-herbert-453324.html |archive-date=24 December 2008 }}</ref> Support for Peary came again in 2005, however, when British explorer [[Tom Avery]] and four companions recreated the outward portion of Peary's journey with replica wooden sleds and [[Canadian Eskimo Dog]] teams, reaching the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours&nbsp;– nearly five hours faster than Peary. However, Avery's fastest 5-day march was {{convert|90|nmi|km}}, significantly short of the {{convert|135|nmi|km}} claimed by Peary. Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from [[Cape Columbia]]. Having now seen for myself how he travelled across the pack ice, I am more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole."<ref>[http://www.tomavery.net/gallery_np2005.php Tom Avery website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150122113921/http://www.tomavery.net/gallery_np2005.php |date=22 January 2015 }}. Retrieved May 2007</ref>

The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by U.S. naval officer [[Richard E. Byrd]] and pilot [[Floyd Bennett]] in a [[Fokker F.VII|Fokker tri-motor]] aircraft. Although verified at the time by a committee of the [[National Geographic Society]], this claim has since been undermined<ref>[http://library.osu.edu/sites/archives/polar/flight/controversy.php The North Pole Flight of Richard E. Byrd: An Overview of the Controversy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013144532/http://library.osu.edu/sites/archives/polar/flight/controversy.php |date=13 October 2007 }}, Byrd Polar Research Center of the Ohio State University. See also [http://www.dioi.org/vols/wa0.pdf ''DIO''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120214012122/http://www.dioi.org/vols/wa0.pdf |date=14 February 2012 }} Vol. 10 [2000] (refereed both at University of Cambridge and by the ''DIO'' board), which reveals errors of grade school arithmetic in the Byrd-defenses of W.Molett (pp. 55 & 98) and consultant J. Portney (pp. 73–75), neither of whom attempts to explain Byrd's surgical censoring of his original June report, or his and the National Geographic's hiding of said report for decades. Similarly, Avery's chimeral try at replicating the Peary 1909 trip via 2005 ice, may divert from but cannot explain Peary's data-blanks, data-alterations, nor why he, when reading his diary to Congress on 7 January 1911, understandably [http://www.dioi.org/cot.htm#wpst deleted] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180124070852/http://www.dioi.org/cot.htm#wpst |date=24 January 2018 }} (only) its sole attempt at explaining (crudely and inadequately) his steering: "setting course by moon, our shadows etc". See ''The Washington Post'' 20 April 1989. Compare diary 2 April 1909 to p. 302 of the Peary Hearings: complete verbatim copy at 1916 ''Congressional Record'' Vol. 53, Appendix pp. 293–327.</ref> by the 1996 revelation that Byrd's long-hidden diary's solar [[sextant]] data (which the NGS never checked) consistently contradict his June 1926 report's parallel data by over {{Convert|100|mi|abbr=on}}.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/09/did-byrd-reach-pole-his-diary-hints-no.html Did Byrd Reach Pole? His Diary Hints 'No'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131113223332/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/09/did-byrd-reach-pole-his-diary-hints-no.html |date=13 November 2013 }}. ''The New York Times''. (9 May 1996). Retrieved 2012-07-04.</ref> The secret report's alleged en-route solar sextant data were inadvertently so impossibly overprecise that he excised all these alleged raw solar observations out of the version of the report finally sent to geographical societies five months later (while the original version was hidden for 70 years), a realization first published in 2000 by the [[University of Cambridge]] after scrupulous refereeing.<ref>D. Rawlins ''[[Polar Record]]'' (Scott Polar Research Institute) vol. 36 pp. 25–50. SPRI's preface: the paper "is considered to be of such significance to the community that it has been published here despite an expanded version being published this same month in ''DIO''." Both versions (p. 38 and 59, respectively) note that while Byrd's New York ticker-tape parade and his National Geographic Society gold medal presentation were on 23 June 1926, the NGS exam of his later-hidden original report was from early 23 June through late 28 June (six days, mistakenly cited as "five consecutive days" in the report), a chronology so revealing that the September ''National Geographic'' pp. 384–385 stripped out the dates (only) from the NGS' own report, which was published uncensored (thanks to the Secretary of the Navy) at ''The New York Times'' 30 June, p. 5.</ref>

The first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer [[Roald Amundsen]] and his U.S. sponsor [[Lincoln Ellsworth]] from the [[airship]] ''[[Norge (airship)|Norge]]''.<ref>Tierney, John. (7 September 2009) [http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/who-was-first-at-the-north-pole/ Who Was First at the North Pole?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141102233931/http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/who-was-first-at-the-north-pole/ |date=2 November 2014 }}. Tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2012-07-04.</ref> ''Norge'', though Norwegian-owned, was designed and piloted by the Italian [[Umberto Nobile]]. The flight started from [[Svalbard]] in Norway, and crossed the Arctic Ocean to Alaska. Nobile, with several scientists and crew from the ''Norge'', overflew the Pole a second time on 24 May 1928, in the airship ''[[Airship Italia|Italia]]''. The ''Italia'' crashed on its return from the Pole, with the loss of half the crew.

[[:ru:Беспосадочный перелёт Москва — Северный полюс — Ванкувер|Another transpolar flight]] was accomplished in a [[Tupolev ANT-25]] airplane with a crew of [[Valery Chkalov]], [[Georgy Baydukov]] and [[Alexander Vasilyevich Belyakov|Alexander Belyakov]], who flew over the North Pole on 19 June 1937, during their direct flight from the Soviet Union to the USA without any stopover.