I woke up to today’s May 23rd, 1926 edition of the Sunday Star, only to find a sweet picture of a man and his dog. But not just any dog. The first dog to fly over the North Pole.

I had a few questions, so dug into it. Here's what they almost didn't tell you.

By May 1926, the race to the North Pole was one of the great adventures of the age. Covered nearly every single day in the spring of 1926. Commander Richard Byrd had just claimed an aerial crossing days earlier. But the Norge — an Italian-built dirigible piloted by Col. Umberto Nobile and carrying Roald Amundsen, American Lincoln Ellsworth, and a crew of sixteen others — completed the first verifiable transpolar flight, crossing from Spitsbergen, Norway all the way to Teller, Alaska, over the top of the world. The first confirmed flight over the pole. Byrd’s has since been disputed by historians given his flight log and current understandings.

Her name was Titinia (or some papers spell it Titina), Col. Nobile's fox terrier. Eight months old at the time of the crossing. She always accompanied Nobile on his flights. The paper noted that to him it seemed impossible to fly even a small trial flight without her.

Over the pole she wore clothes. A red woolen jersey, specifically. During the greatest part of the flight she slept, covered by Col. Nobile's sleeping bag. The correspondent noted with what feels like genuine admiration — she was generally very calm.

Then came the windstorm over Kotzebue Sound.

When the ship was being thrown up and down in the gale, like any dog in a thunderstorm, Titinia apparently understood that the situation was dangerous. She ran about the cabin floor with her tail between her legs.

As soon as the ship landed, the dog was again calm.

That's the whole story. Filed by radio from Alaska. Printed in a handful of papers. One photograph of Nobile holding her, looking quietly pleased with himself.

And just like that she was the first dog over the North Pole.

I've been going through these papers every day now and I've noticed something. The big stories — the expeditions, the political fights, the records and the races — get the headlines. But it's always the small details filed almost as afterthoughts that tell you what it was actually like to be alive in that moment. This one made me feel like I was in 1926. Reading about a regular dog and her owner doing something normal, but also incredible.

Men crossed the top of the world in a gas bag in 1926 and one of them brought his dog and dressed her in a little red jersey and she slept through most of it and got scared during the storm just like anyone would.

Today's paper had more from May 23rd, 1926 than just Titinia — and subscribers get all of it in the cutting room floor section below.