First people to reach the North Pole

The first person to reach the North Pole has long been a matter of controversy and debate between two American explorers, and their supporters, both of whom claimed to have been the first, and both of whom disputed the other's claim as a fraud, whether intentional or not. Robert Peary, travelling with Matt Henson (USA), indicated he had reached the North Pole on 6 April 1909, however Frederick Cook, claimed he had done so a year earlier, on 21 April 1908. Despite investigations into the claims (both at the time and since) neither can be unquestionably proven.

What is agreed, is that the first people to fly above the Geographic North Pole were Norway's Roald Amundsen (who led the first expedition to the South Pole), sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth (USA) and pilot Umberto Nobile (Italy) - along with 13 others - on board the airship Norge, which flew across the Arctic Ocean from Svalbard, Norway, to Alaska, USA, on 11-14 May 1926; they passed over the North Pole at 1.25 a.m. (GMT) on 12 May, dropping a Norwegian, American and Italian flag as they passed over.

The first to step foot on the North Pole were a team of Soviet scientists led by Aleksandr Kuznetsov (USSR), after flying to the pole and landing three Lisunov Li-2 aircraft on the sea-ice on 23 April 1948.

The earliest indisputable attainment of the North Pole by surface travel over the sea-ice, meanwhile, took place at 3 p.m. (Central Standard Time) on 19 April 1968, when expedition leader Ralph Plaisted (USA), accompanied by mechanic Walter Pederson (USA), navigator Gerald Pitzl (USA) and snowmobile manufacturer Jean-Luc Bombardier (Canada), reached the pole after a 42-day trek using snowmobiles.

The first people to reach the North Pole without motorized transport (with dog sleds, but supported by airdrops) were the UK's Sir Wally Herbert, Allan Gill, Major Ken Hedges and Dr Roy Koerner on 6 April 1969, during the 1968-69 British Trans-Arctic Expedition between Alaska, USA, and Svalbard, Norway (the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean).

On 4 May 1990, Børge Ousland and Erling Kagge (both Norway) reached the North Pole on skis without resupply, after a journey lasting 58 days, making them the first people to reach the North Pole unsupported. (A third companion, Geir Randby, was injured en route and had to abandon the expedition.)

The first person to ski solo and unsupported to the North Pole was Børge Ousland in 1994.