Reaching the North Pole

Famed African-American explorer Matthew Henson was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1866. Explorer Robert Edwin Peary hired Henson as his valet for expeditions. For more than two decades, they explored the Arctic, and on April 6, 1909, Peary, Henson and the rest of their team made history, becoming the first people to reach the North Pole—or at least they claimed to have. Henson died in New York City in 1955.

 

Learn more about this great American Explorer: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/henson-matthew-1866-1955