Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary and Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest H. Shackleton, photographed together in New York City in 1910. Peary claimed to have been the first to reach the North Pole in 1909, but this claim was disputed by Frederick Cook, who claimed to have arrived a year earlier. Neither claim is completely accepted today. The first person to verifiably reach the North Pole was Roald Amundsen, who flew over it by plane on May 12, 1926. Ironically, Amundsen also beat Shackleton to the South Pole, on December 14, 1911.