He joined the United States Navy as a Civil Engineer in 1881. He eventually became Rear Admiral of the US Navy.
While in Nicaragua with the Navy, Peary became determined to visit the arctic and to be the first to get to the North Pole. In Nicaragua he met Matthew Henson, an Affrican-American civil Engineer in the Navy. Peary was impressed with Henson and decided that he would go along with him to the North.
On leave from the Navy, Peary, in 1886, went to Greenland where he reached its most northern point and declared that the Pole was not part of Greenland but lay farther north. After extensive surveying, mapping and exploration of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic over the last part of the century, he came to the conclusion that it was actually the Canadian Island of Ellesmere that was the closer to the North Pole, as opposed to Greenland, his previous opinion. In 1905, Peary attempted to reach the North Pole yet failed. He did however lay claim to the northernmost known point ever visited by a human. In 1909, Peary and his crew sailed on the USS Roosevelt to Ellesmere Island, where on March 1st, with 22 other men, Peary and Henson went due North to reach the Pole. Many died or returned home at various times along the expedition and only six people, including Peary and Henson reached the North Pole on April 9, 1909.
Another explorer, Frederick A. Cook claimed that, a year earlier, he had actually been to the North Pole earlier than Peary and had a photograph to prove it. However, the Inuit that went with Cook later confessed that the photograph was a fake, ruining Cook's reputation and making Peary and Henson the only people to be declared discoverers of the North Pole. In 1920, at the young age of 63, Robert Peary died. Henson lived a long life, and was later credited with co-discovering the pole, after his role in the expedition had been, due to his race, downplayed. In 1988, Henson who was buried in a simple grave in New York City, was transferred to Arlington National Cemetery where he lies beside that of his friend and comrade, Robert Peary.
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