Great Controversy Who Discovered the North Pole? Introduction

About the controversy over who really discovered the North Pole, an introduction to the argument.

GREAT CONTROVERSIES

WHO REALLY DISCOVERED THE NORTH POLE?

THE EXPLOIT

For centuries men had striven to reach the North Pole, first as a means of finding a trade route to the Orient and later as an end in itself. During the 1800s, expeditions of Englishmen, Norwegians, Americans, and Italians inched closer and closer to the unmarked point where lines of latitude and longitude meet at 90 deg. N. By the turn of the century, means of travel had improved to such an extent that feeling was high that the pole would be reached soon. And indeed discovery of the North Pole was claimed in 1909--by two different men.