Matthew Henson stands aboard the Roosevelt, a three-masted steamship schooner that set sail from New York on July 16, 1905. After sustaining serious ice damage, the ship turned back, only 175 miles (281.6 kilometers) from the North Pole—the farthest point north that any explorer had reached. Theodore Roosevelt presented Peary with the Hubbard Medal for attaining this new record in December 1906 at a National Geographic Society banquet.

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