Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940), US explorer, at a reception held in his honour in New York City, USA, on 21 August 1909. Cook (centre) is wearing a garland of flowers and is being escorted by two men in uniform. The reception is to celebrate Cook's claim to have reached the North Pole in April 1908, but this claim was disputed by the US explorer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the North Pole a year later in April 1909. The competing claims remain controversial, but it is thought that Peary's claim was correct, and that Cook's was wrong. Cook spent most of the rest of his life trying to clear his name. This photograph is from the Bain News Service, one of the USA's earliest news picture libraries.