The Great Polar Fraud: Cook, Peary, and Byrd - How Three American Heroes Duped the World into Thinking They Had Reached the North Pole

In 1910 Roald Amundsen planned to reach the North Pole but received word that two Americans - Frederick Cook and Robert Peary - each claimed to have reached the pole ahead of him. Devastated, Amundsen secretly sailed south, becoming the first man to reach the South Pole, an accomplishment he considered sort of consolation prize. For years, Cook and Peary tried to convince the world of their claims. Finally the National Geographic Society endorsed Peary, and the matter seemed settled. In May 1926 an American airman, Richard Byrd, flew north in a three-engine plane and returned with a log showing that he had flown exactly over the geographical North Pole, becoming the third man to reach that mythical spot. National Geographic again supported the claim.

However, it is now obvious that Peary claimed distances he could not possibly have achieved, and it is doubtful that Cook, who had a history of fraud, ever even got close to the pole. Byrd flew further north than anyone before, but he did not have the fuel to make the journey he claimed - his log was falsified. Just three days after Byrd’s flight, Amundsen reenters the story on an airship traveling from Svalbard to Alaska, passing directly over the pole, making him the true first to reach it. He died two years later without realizing he was the first to reach both poles.. Galvin explores the history of the three men who claimed the pole, their claims, and the subsequent doubts,, effectively rewriting the history of polar exploration and putting Amundsen center stage as the rightful conqueror of both poles.