About a week before Peary's headline, the New York Herald printed a front-page headline reading 'The North Pole is Discovered by Dr. Frederick A. Cook.'
Notes on verification
Multiple independent sources, including contemporaneous 1909 newspapers, Wikipedia citing primary telegram records, and a peer-reviewed Polar Record article, corroborate the headline text and timeline.
Sources
- Who Discovered the North Pole? (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/quest/quest-for-the-north-pole-episode-7-podcast-transcript (mentalfloss.com)
- https://ala-choice.libguides.com/c.php?g=1150125 (ala-choice.libguides.com)
- https://historicnewspapers.sc.edu/lccn/sn83025797/1909-09-11/ed-1/seq-10/ocr (historicnewspapers.sc.edu)
- https://resolve.cambridge.org/core/journals/polar-record/article/one-mans-trash-the-recovery-of-frederick-a-cooks-original-telegram-drafts-announcing-his-attainmentof-the-north-pole/B8C7ADB653CA74EE687870F1F267A826 (resolve.cambridge.org)