American explorer Frederick Cook, along with two Eskimos, two sleds, and 26 dogs, left Greenland on a march to the polo on February 19, 1908. Fourteen months later, he returned to Greenland, from where he left for Denmark, where he claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908.
Another American explorer, Roberto Peary, left northern Canada for the Pole on February 22, 1909. When he returned from his trip, he claimed that he had reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. His news came just two days after Frederick Cook had arrived in Denmark and claimed that he had reached the Pole.
But later explorers doubted whether any of them had reached the North Pole. Some said that both Peary and Cook had missed the exact spot of the Pole, and others said that they had both lied about their journey.
In 1926, the American Richard Byrd claimed that he had flown over the North Pole, but it could never be proved that he had done so.
The first man to lead an expedition that officially reached the North Pole was the American Ralph Plaisted, who reached the Pole on a snowmobile in 1968.
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