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KF5JRV > TODAY 06.04.19 13:29l 36 Lines 1834 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 33984_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Apr 06
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190406/1124Z 33984@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
On April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Peary accomplishes a long
elusive dream, when he, assistant Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos reach
what they determine to be the North Pole. Decades after Peary’s death,
however, navigational errors in his travel log surfaced, placing the
expedition in all probability a few miles short of its goal.
Peary, a U.S. Navy civil engineer, made his first trip to the interior
of Greenland in 1886. In 1891, Henson, a young African-American sailor,
joined him on his second arctic expedition. Their team made an extended
dogsled journey to the northeast of Greenland and explored what became
known as “Peary Land.ö In 1893, the explorers began working toward the
North Pole, and in 1906, during their second attempt, they nearly
reached latitude 88 degrees north–only 150 miles from their objective.
In 1908, the pair traveled to Ellesmere Island by ship and in 1909 raced
across hundreds of miles of ice to reach what they calculated as
latitude 90 degrees north on April 6, 1909. Although their achievement
was widely acclaimed, Dr. Frederick A. Cook challenged their distinction
of being the first to reach the North Pole. A former associate of Peary,
Cook claimed he had already reached the pole by dogsled the previous
year. A major controversy followed, and in 1911 the U.S. Congress
formally recognized Peary’s claim.
In recent years, further studies of the conflicting claims suggest that
neither expedition reached the exact North Pole, but that Peary and
Henson came far closer, falling perhaps 30 miles short. On May 3, 1952,
U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma stepped out of a
plane and walked to the precise location of the North Pole, the first
person to undisputedly do so.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.COM
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