The great Polar fraud: Cook, Peary, and Byrd--how three American heroes duped the world into thinking they had reached the North Pole

In 1910, Roald Amundsen set off from Oslo toward the North Pole but soon received word that two Americans--Frederick Cook and Robert Peary--each claimed to have reached the Pole ahead of him. Devastated, Amundsen famously went south. For years Cook and Peary tried to convince the world of their claims. Finally the National Geographic Society endorsed Peary, and the matter seemed settled. In May 1926 an American airman, Richard Byrd, flew north in a three-engine plane, and returned with a log showing that he had flown exactly over the geographical North Pole, becoming the third man to reach that mythical spot. New evidence casts doubts on the claims of Cook, Peary, and Byrd, putting Amundsen center stage as the rightful conqueror of both poles.