Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reached what they thought was the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Exhausted and with a diminished crew of four Eskimos, they stood, according to their records, at the northernmost point on the globe.

Re-examination of Peary's notes has convinced several people in recent years that Peary and Henson were a few dozen miles short of their goal. They are still given the credit, though, because no one else has a better claim.

Peary began his career as civil engineer in the United States Navy in 1881. He turned his thirst for adventure into a love of exploring and set out to be the first to achieve something monumental.

The first step on the goal of reaching the North Pole was a trip to the wilds of Greenland in 1886. When Peary went back five years later, he brought with another team, this one headed by an African-American sailor named Matthew Henson. The two set about making plans for reaching the North Pole in 1893. A second journey in 1906 took them to 88 degrees north latitude.

In 1909, they battled worsening weather in reaching what they thought was 90 degrees north, or the North Pole. They returned unharmed and announced their achievement.

Not everyoned believed Peary and Henson. Another explorer, Frederick Cook, who had been on an 1891 expedition with Peary and Henson, claimed that he had reached the North Pole the year before. The U.S. Congress in 1911 formally recognized Peary's claim that it was he and Henson who had reached the North Pole first.

Doubts simmered for many years, long after Peary died, in 1920. A major reinvestigation by National Geographic in the 1980s, delving in detail into Peary's own notes, determined that the pair had come dozens of miles short. The same reinvestigation cast doubt on Cook's claim as well. The one claim known to be valid was that of Joseph Fletcher, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. armed forces. On May 3, 1952, having calculated the precise location of the North Pole, he stepped out of a plane onto the exact spot.