Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician, and ethnographer, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. This was a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by American explorer Robert Peary, and the accounts were disputed for several years. His expedition did discover Meighen Island, the only discovery of an island in the American Arctic by a United States expedition.After reviewing Cook's limited records, a commission of the University of Copenhagen ruled in December 1909 that he had proven that he reached the pole. In 1911 Cook published a memoir of his expedition, continuing to assert their success. His 1906 account of having reached the summit of Mount McKinley has also been discredited.The first undisputed explorers to walk on the North Pole ice were documented in 1969 during a British expedition led by British explorer Wally Herbert (see the list of firsts in the Geographic North Pole).