Ninety-nine years ago today, on May 31, 1926 (April 20, 1926), Bird and Bennett made a successful flight around the North Pole by plane. Commander Bird and Floyd Bennett On May 31, 1926, two brave flying teams went down in history for completing the first flight around the North Pole this month. The first flight around the North Pole was made by two Americans, Floyd Bennett and Naval Command Palace Richard-E-Bird. They took off from the northern Norwegian island of Fokker on the morning of May 9 in a plane with three engines. Despite an engine failure on the way, they flew over the North Pole more than seven hours later, and then returned to Spitsbergen after a 16-hour flight. Just two days later, an airship Norwegian took off from Spitsbergen carrying pilots from various countries, including Roald Amundsen of Norway, Lincoln Ellsworth of the United States, and Umberto Nobil of Italy. The pilots reached the North Pole on the morning of the second day, dropped the flags of the three countries, and then the Norwegian continued to fly across the North Pole north to Alaska, arriving safely in Nome on May 13. Amundsen's Norwegian airship is landing