Arctic exploration reached fever peak in the first decade of the 20th century, when two American explorers, Frederick Cook and Richard Peary, made separate claims to be the first man to have reached the North Pole. Cook was a New York physician and explorer, who set out in June 1907, ostensibly to lead a hunting party in northern Greenland. Once there, Cook announced his intention to discover the Pole. He traveled to Axel Heiberg Island near the Arctic Circle, and then, accompanied by two Eskimos, he journeyed across the sea ice to the point where on April 21, 1908, he reached what he believed to be the North Pole. Cook's return was so hazardous that it took a full year before he reached Upernavik, Greenland. Peary, who had made several earlier attempts to reach the Pole, traveled in 1908 to Ellesmere Island. From there, accompanied by his assistant Matthew Henson and four Eskimos, he headed for the Pole. On April 6, 1909, he arrived at what his instruments indicated was the North Pole.

Peary proclaimed his discovery four days after Cook had announced his. At first, most authorities supported Cook's claim, but Peary pursued a relentless campaign to discredit Cook, whose cause was further undermined when the two Eskimos who had accompanied him asserted that they had gone only a short distance on the polar ice. Cook's case eroded further when an earlier claim of his to have been the first man to reach the top of Mount McKinley was proven false. In the 1920s, Cook was convicted of stock fraud and spent the rest of his life in prison. Peary's claim came to be generally accepted, although Cook supporters have continued the controversy. A recent argument has suggested that Peary missed the Pole by 50 nautical miles, resolving the controversy not in favor of Cook, but against both explorers.

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