The Norge was a semi-rigid Italian-built airship that carried out the first verified trip of any kind to the North Pole and likely the first verified overflight on 12th May 1926. It was also the first aircraft to fly over the polar ice cap between Europe and America. The expedition was the brainchild of polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, the airship's designer and pilot Umberto Nobile and American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, who along with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the trip which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.
In 1925, Amundsen telegrammed Nobile asking to meet him at Oslo, where he proposed an airship trip across the Arctic. With a contract in place Nobile modified the N-1 for cold conditions. As the expedition was being financed by the Aero Club of Norway the modified N-1 was given the name Norge.
On 12th May at 01.25 (GMT) they reached the North Pole, at which point the Norwegian, American and Italian flags were dropped from the airship onto the ice. Relations between Amundsen and Nobile, which had been strained in the freezing, cramped and noisy conditions became even worse when Amundsen saw that the Italian flag dropped was larger than either of the others. Amundsen later recalled with scorn that under Nobile, the airship had become "a circus wagon in the sky".
On 14th May the Norge reached the Inupiat village of Teller, Alaska where in view of worsening weather, the decision was made to land rather than continue to Nome. The airship was reportedly damaged during the landing and was dismantled and shipped back to Italy.
The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole—by Frederick Cook in 1908, Robert Peary in 1909, and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 (just a few days before the Norge)—are all disputed as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. Some of those disputing these earlier claims therefore consider the crew of the Norge to be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole.