North Pole

The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away, though some perhaps semi-permanent gravel banks lie slightly closer.

The first complete land expedition to reach the North Pole was in 1968 by Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, using snowmobiles and with air support.

An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by U.S. Navy officer George W. De Long ended tragically when their ship, the USS Jeannette, was crushed by ice.

On 11 March 1900, Cagni led a party over the ice and reached latitude 86° 34’ on 25 April, setting a new record by beating Nansen's result of 1895 by 35 to 40 km (22 to 25 mi).

[citation needed] The distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back seem incredible to many people, almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point.

Avery writes on his web site that "The admiration and respect which I hold for Robert Peary, Matthew Henson and the four Inuit men who ventured North in 1909, has grown enormously since we set out from Cape Columbia.

"[12] The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by U.S. naval officer Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft.

[15] The first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his U.S. sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship Norge.

The expedition members — oceanographer Pyotr Shirshov, meteorologist Yevgeny Fyodorov, radio operator Ernst Krenkel, and the leader Ivan Papanin[17] — conducted scientific research at the station for the next nine months.

[25] The party flew on three planes (pilots Ivan Cherevichnyy, Vitaly Maslennikov and Ilya Kotov) from Kotelny Island to the North Pole and landed there at 4:44pm (Moscow Time, UTC+04:00) on 23 April 1948.

[32] The first confirmed surface conquest of the North Pole was accomplished by Ralph Plaisted, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean Luc Bombardier, who traveled over the ice by snowmobile and arrived on 19 April 1968.

On 6 April 1969 Wally Herbert and companions Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the British Trans-Arctic Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of dog teams and airdrops).

[33][34] Because of suggestions (later proven false) of Plaisted's use of air transport, some sources classify Herbert's expedition as the first confirmed to reach the North Pole over the ice surface by any means.

As a result of this journey, which formed a section of the three-year Transglobe Expedition 1979–1982, Fiennes and Burton became the first people to complete a circumnavigation of the world via both North and South Poles, by surface travel alone.

In March 1990, Gurnard deployed to the Arctic region during exercise Ice Ex '90 and completed only the fourth winter submerged transit of the Bering and Seas.

On April 16, 1990, a German-Swiss expedition led by a team of the University of Giessen reached the Geographic North Pole for studies on pollution of pack ice, snow and air.

[43] On 4 May 1990 Børge Ousland and Erling Kagge became the first explorers ever to reach the North Pole unsupported, after a 58-day ski trek from Ellesmere Island in Canada, a distance of 800 km.

In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Lada Niva Marshs (special very large wheeled versions made by BRONTO, Lada/Vaz's experimental product division) were driven to the North Pole.

In recent years journeys to the North Pole by air (landing by helicopter or on a runway prepared on the ice) or by icebreaker have become relatively routine, and are even available to small groups of tourists through adventure holiday companies.

The temporary seasonal Russian camp of Barneo has been established by air a short distance from the Pole annually since 2002, and caters for scientific researchers as well as tourist parties.

The first attempt at underwater exploration of the North Pole was made on 22 April 1998 by Russian firefighter and diver Andrei Rozhkov with the support of the Diving Club of Moscow State University, but ended in fatality.

On 1 March 2013 the Russian Marine Live-Ice Automobile Expedition (MLAE 2013) with Vasily Elagin as a leader, and a team of Afanasy Makovnev, Vladimir Obikhod, Alexey Shkrabkin, Andrey Vankov, Sergey Isayev and Nikolay Kozlov on two custom-built 6 x 6 low-pressure-tire ATVs—Yemelya-3 and Yemelya-4—started from Golomyanny Island (the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago) to the North Pole across drifting ice of the Arctic Ocean.

The twilight period that occurs before sunrise and after sunset has three different definitions: These effects are caused by a combination of the Earth's axial tilt and its revolution around the Sun.

Despite being an ice cap, the northernmost weather station in Greenland has a tundra climate (Köppen ET) due to the July and August mean temperatures peaking just above freezing.

[62] Yet again, February 2018 featured a storm so powerful that temperatures at Cape Morris Jesup, the world's northernmost weather station in Greenland, reached 6.1 °C (43.0 °F) and spent 24 straight hours above freezing.

[54] However, it was later reported that a sea anemone had been scooped up from the seabed mud by the Russian team and that video footage from the dive showed unidentified shrimps and amphipods.

The five surrounding Arctic countries, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (via Greenland), and the United States, are limited to a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) exclusive economic zone off their coasts, and the area beyond that is administered by the International Seabed Authority.

Upon ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country has 10 years to make claims to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

[85] This association reflects an age-old esoteric mythology of Hyperborea that posits the North Pole, the otherworldly world-axis, as the abode of God and superhuman beings.

[91] In Iranian theosophy, the heavenly Pole, the focal point of the spiritual ascent, acts as a magnet to draw beings to its "palaces ablaze with immaterial matter.