Frederick Cook
American explorer and physician
Died when: 75 years 56 days (901 months)Star Sign: Gemini
Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician, and ethnographer who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908.
That was nearly a year before Robert E Peary, who similarly claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909.
Both men's accounts have been disputed ever since. His expedition was the first, and the only one with a United States national, to find a previously unknown, to people of European descent, North American Arctic island, Meighen Island.
In December 1909, after reviewing Cook's limited records, a commission of the University of Copenhagen ruled his claim unproven. In 1911, Cook published a memoir of his expedition that continued his claim.
His account of reaching the summit of Denali (Mount McKinley) in Alaska has also been discredited.