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How Did Peary Discover The North Pole

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On the date of September 7th, 1909, the New York Times had an article on the front page that stated “Peary Discovers the North Pole after eight trials in 23 years”. Many people had tried to achieve this goal of exploring the north pole and reaching it, but had all failed. However, a week earlier, the New York Herald had printed its own front-page headline: “The North Pole is Discovered by Dr. Frederick A. Cook.” Cook is an American explorer who had seemingly returned from being dead. He was said to have stayed more than a year in the Arctic and had claimed he reached the pole in April 1908 which was exactly a full year before Peary had ever reached the North Pole. Peary was born in 1856 and he was claimed to be one of the last imperialistic …show more content…

It all started with the Peary Arctic club who questioned cooks claims to have have scaled Mount McKinley in 1906. The club released an affidavit signed by a man by the name of Barrill that was Notarized in October saying that the pair never made it all the way to the top. The Document was published for everyone to see in the New York Globe, which was owned by Thomas Hubbard, who declared that since the McKinley affair, that Cook also lied on the polar claim. On October 24, the New York Herald state that before the affidavit was even signed, that Barrill had met with Peary’s representatives to discuss the financial issue for calling Cook a liar. In the paper quoted Barrill's business partner who state that Barrill told him “This means from $5,000-$10,000 to me.” A week after the affidavit appeared in the globe, Peary released a transcript to interrogate those who were aboard the Roosevelt. They had learned that Cook had only traveled a few days North on the ice cap, and the map they used could be used as evidence. Later in October, the National Geographic Society had long supported Peary’s work and had put up $1,000 for the recent expedition. On November, 1 they had sent 3 men to examine his data. That evening they looked at instruments in a trunk but did not carefully examine that. The instruments had been poorly lit baggage of a train station in Washington, DC. Two days later, the committee announced that Peary had actually reached the North Pole. In December, a University started examining records that Cook’s claim was not proven. Many people took that finding mean to be disproved. Cook did not help his cause when he decided to go on a year long exploration to Europe, where h wrote his book, My Attainment at the pole. He never returned to the Arctic but Whitney did, reaching northern Greenland in 1910. However, he was not able to recover any of Cook’s instruments or records, nor has anyone else in

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