Everyone knows that 90 degrees north is the coordinate of Earth’s North Pole. But virtually no one knows who actually pioneered it. Neither Robert Peary nor Frederick Cook provided any evidence that would be satisfactory for scientists. And therefore the Guinness Book of Records had to recognize that Pavel Afanasyevich Gordiyenko, Pavel Kononovich Senko, Mikhail Mikhailovich Somov and Mikhail Yemelyanovich Ostrekin became the first people who undoubtedly reached the North Pole – having flown there aboard airplanes. We have something to add to the Guinness record: the North Pole 2 expedition was held top secret. Even though the Soviet people did nothing wrong – the two Pavels and two Mikhails carried out routine research by taking water samples and measuring ocean depths, waiting for the same planes to pick up the expedition off the ice. Yet, the account of this expedition was not made public until after Stalin’s death.