Background
Peary was born on May 6, 1856 in Cresson, Pennsylvania, United States.
( Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 - August 5, 1940) ...)
Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 - August 5, 1940) was an American explorer and physician noted for his claims of achieving the first summit of Mount McKinley, in September 1906, and having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908, which would have been a year before Robert Peary. Both claims have been largely discredited. Later, Dr. Cook was a founding member of the Arctic Club and Explorers Club. Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. (May 6, 1856 - February 20, 1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have led the first expedition, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole. Peary's claim was widely accepted for most of the 20th century, rather than the competing claim by Frederick Cook who said he got there a year earlier. More recently, historians generally believe Cook did not reach the pole, and there are grave doubts that Peary did, though he may have been as close as five miles. Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (February 1874 - January 5, 1922) was an Anglo-Irish polar explorer and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. In January 1909, as leader of the Nimrod Expedition, he and three companions made a southern march which established a record-farthest south latitude at 88 degrees 23' S, some 97 geographical from the South Pole, the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.
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(The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices...)
The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Robert E. (Robert Edwin) Peary is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Robert E. (Robert Edwin) Peary then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.
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(Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. (1856 1920) was an American exp...)
Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. (1856 1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole with his expedition on April 6, 1909. Peary's claim was widely credited for most of the 20th century, rather than the competing claim by Frederick Cook, who said he got there a year earlier. Both claims were widely debated in newspapers until 1913. Peary made his first expedition to the Arctic in 1886, intending to cross Greenland by dog sled, taking the first of his own suggested paths. He was given six months' leave from the Navy, and he received $500 from his mother to book passage north and buy supplies. He sailed on a whaler to Greenland, arriving in Godhavn on June 6, 1886. Peary wanted to make a solo trek but a young Danish official named Christian Maigaard convinced him he would die if he went out alone. Maigaard and Peary set off together and traveled nearly 100 miles due east before turning back because they were short on food. This was the second-farthest penetration of Greenland's ice sheet at that date. Peary returned home knowing more of what was required for long-distance ice trekking. Originally published in 1893; may contain an occasional imperfection.
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Peary was born on May 6, 1856 in Cresson, Pennsylvania, United States.
Peary attended public schools in Portland, United States, and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877 with a degree in civil engineering.
After working as a county surveyor in Maine and a draftsman in Washington, D. C. , Peary passed the civil engineering examinations of the U. S. Navy and was commissioned in 1881.
In 1884-1885 he served in Nicaragua as subchief of the Inter-Ocean Canal Survey, managing half-civilized men, equipping expeditions, and traversing wild territory.
His curiosity, once it was aroused, seemed to become insatiable.
He and one companion explored the icecap east of Disko Bay.
In 1891-1892, following another two-year tour of duty in Nicaragua, he again went north, sledged 1, 300 miles (2, 100 km) across northeast Greenland from McCormick Bay to Independence Bay, and discovered and named Melville Land and Heilprin Land.
He found that the east and west coasts of Greenland converge, showing that Greenland is an island.
She is reputedly the first Caucasian woman to have braved an Arctic winter. In 1893-1895 Peary returned to Greenland on a third expedition, and in the summers of 1896 and 1897 he made brief voyages to Cape York, Greenland, to recover previously discovered meteorites.
In 1898 he departed on a four-year expedition that was to represent his first serious effort to reach the North Pole, but he was able to travel only to 84°84d 17' north in 1902.
On this expedition he visited Fort Conger, a hut on Ellesmere Island where members of an ill-fated expedition led by A. W. Greely had been based 17 years earlier, and retrieved the records and instruments left there.
He also explored the Lady Franklin Bay and Princess Marie Bay regions and the desolate icecap of Ellesmere Island.
After a bitter controversy Cook's claim was discredited and Peary was acknowledged the victor.
Doubts about Peary's claim persisted.
Roald Amundsen, for example, never believed that Peary had reached the pole.
It was not until the 1980's and 1990's, however, when notebooks, logs, and photographs of Peary's expedition were examined, that Peary's claim was seriously called into question.
A study prepared in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation concluded that Peary was no more than five miles (8 km) from his goal.
In 1996 Robert M. Bryce, who spent 20 year studying the controversy, published Cook &Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved, in which he maintained that neither Cook nor Peary reached the pole, and that the latter did not get within 100 miles (160 km) of the objective.
( Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 - August 5, 1940) ...)
(The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices...)
(Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. (1856 1920) was an American exp...)
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