Polar exploration themed read for April 2024, already from the forward (by Peary) and introduction (by Booker T. Washington) Im intrigued.

Matthew Henson, the first person to reach the North Pole

“The lure of the arctic is tugging at my heart. To me the trail is calling! The old trail, the trail that is always new.” —Matthew Henson

In 1909 a team of six men on dog sledges made their way to a single point at the center of vast Arctic wilderness. It was a block of ice 413 nautical miles off the coast of Greenland believed to be the North Pole. There were many who refuted the events that led up to the day, April 6th, when an American flag was planted there. But in the years that followed an irrefutable truth would be revealed. The first person to stand on top of the world was a Black man named Henson.

When Commander Robert Edwin Peary set out on the expedition his company included 24 men, 19 sledges, and 133 dogs. After months of travel across an immense field of ice from the edge of Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island, as planed, one by one members of the party began turning back. So there were only a handful of men who could substantiate the claim. When the first human footprints were pressed into the snow at the most northern point on the planet all that remained of the original corps were Peary, 40 dogs, four native Inuit hunters and a Black American man who would be forgotten by history for almost half a century. [...]

Although Peary was the public face of their partnership, Henson was the front man in the field. With his skills as a carpenter and craftsman, Henson personally built and maintained all of the sledges used on their expeditions. He was fluent in the Inuit language and established a rapport with the native people of the region. He was known by all he encountered as “Matthew the Kind One.” Henson learned the methods the Inuit used to survive and travel through the incredibly hostile landscape of the Arctic. He was a very capable hunter, fisherman, and dog handler. And it was he who trained even the most experienced of Peary’s recruits on each of the eight attempts they made to reach the North Pole.

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For over a century, polar historians have generally agreed that American Navy engineer Robert Peary was the first person to reach the Geographic North Pole. But studies made over the last several decades assert that it was actually Peary’s African American associate, Matthew Henson, who got there ahead of him – despite losing eight of his toes to frostbite.

Peary’s much-studied and much-contested 1909 expedition to the North Pole was the last of eight and the only one to achieve its ultimate objective. And though the man’s claim to have made it to the pole first (or at all) was disputed from the start, it was only more recently that polar scholars began sliding Henson into his place.

Some of these scholars, such as British explorer Wally Herbert, science journalist John Noble Wilford, and City Journal editor John Tierney, focused chiefly on the veracity of Peary’s claim to have reached the pole, citing the lack of essential data in his notebook. But some subsequent studies indicate Peary knowingly stole the credit from Henson.

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Did I mention he wrote an autobiography, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole: The Autobiography of Matthew Henson, and Taraji P. Henson is great-great cousins with this once hidden figure? 😏

MATTHEW HENSON MATTHEW HENSON

peary who?? i don't know him

Today's Black History Month illustration is of Matthew Henson, the first Black Arctic explorer and a part of the small group considered to be the first to reach the geographic North Pole in 1909.

Matthew Alexander Henson was born in 1866 in Maryland. He was the son of two freeborn Black sharecroppers. When Henson was 4, his father moved the family to Washington DC for better work opportunities. His parents died early on and Henson and his siblings were left with other family members.

When Henson was 11, he left home to find his own way. He walked from DC all the way to Baltimore, Maryland and found work as a cabin boy on the ship Katie Hines. The skipper, Captain Childs, took Henson under his wing and educated him. Also, while being a cabin boy, he travelled to Asia, Africa, and Europe.

After Captain Child passed, he made his way back to Washington DC. In 1887, while working in a store, Henson met Robert E. Peary, who hired him as a valet for his next expedition to Nicaragua. Peary was impressed with Henson’s skills and all around resourcefulness and employed him as an attendant on seven expeditions to the Arctic.

On April 6, 1909, Henson, Peary, and four Inuit guides, Egingwah, Ooqueah, Ootah, and Seeglo, drove their dogsleds to the North Pole. It’s said that Henson arrived alone at what he thought was the North Pole. Peary caught up to him an hour later and refused to accept Henson’s calculation. Peary then chose a different location and called it the North Pole.

When they returned home from the expedition, Peary received most of the accolades for the trip even though Henson was technically first. And despite the accolades, the team faced a lot of skepticism, and Peary had to testify before Congress about the lack of proof of reaching the North Pole.

By order of President Taft, Henson was appointed clerk in the US Customs House in New York City and he also continued to talk about his experiences as an explorer. In 1912, he wrote the book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In 1937, when Henson was 70, he was accepted as an honorary member of the highly regarded Explorers Club. A few years later, he and the other members of the North Pole Expedition were awarded a Congressional Medal. In 1947, he worked with Bradley Robinson to write his biography, Dark Companion.

Henson died in NYC in 1955, but was reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1987 at the request of Dr. S. Allen Counter of Harvard University.

I'll be back tomorrow with another illustration and story!

https://x.com/ProenzaColes/status/1702669437189472569?t=_qSePZLobO7rwN1HoJHiNA&s=09

Explorer Matthew Henson reached the North Pole in 1909. The expedition included Robert Peary and four Inuit men. Henson and his wife are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Couldn’t stop thinking about what would've happened if Matt actually answered the door, when Karen and Foggy showed up at his place completely wasted. So I made a few excerpts

[TRANSCRIPT: PANEL 1: Karen is laughing. Foggy bangs on the door: “Open the door Murdork!” PANEL 2: Matt opens the door: “You’re really making a lot of noise, Foggy”. Karen is giggling to herself. Foggy is excited: “He’s alive!" PANEL 3: Karen hiccups. Foggy puts his arm around Matt, visibly drunk: “Listen! Did I ever tell you that my mom really wanted me to be a butcher?”. Matt smiles to himself: “You don’t say” PANEL 4: Karen grabs Matt excitedly but stumbles over her words: “MATT! We HAVE to go to Mexico to pet.. the d-donkeys”. Matt humours her : “Right, what are we even doing here?” PANEL 5: Foggy has crashed on the couch and snores loudly PANEL 6: Matt supports Karen: “Let’s get you to bed, miss Page”. Karen is losing her balance: “sorry” PANEL 7: Karen lies in a bed while drifting off to sleep: “…the donkeys though..” PANEL 8: Matt looking softly at her: “get some rest” PANEL 9: Foggy is hungover on the couch: “Oh I’m so not drinking again. As in ever”. Matt is carrying two coffe mugs and smiles smugly: “rough morning?”. Karen is struggling next to Foggy:”I swear to god, Murdock”]

Girls don't want diamonds, girls want a dimension 20 all puppet season where everyone at the table has a puppet for their character and also I'm girls

Anyways what season would you guys want to see puppet-ified, feel like this current season or a Ravening war would be pretty amazing, mostly just because I want to see Brennan act out the most complex and sad narratives possible while holding a puppet

MATT MURDOCK & FOGGY NELSON

Daredevil 1x10 - "Nelson & Murdock"

Muppet Fact #864

In the 1980 presidential election, people cast write-in votes for both Miss Piggy and Kermit.

Source:

"Cizanckas Fund ... The Write-in Votes." Matthew L. Wald. Connecticut Journal. December 7, 1980. Section C, page 3.

So good at acting that all he has to do is sweat and his performance will move people! 😂

(Source)

Power Of The Dark Crystal #2 (Cover Art By Kelly Matthews & Nichole Matthews)