I don't know whether mods will allow this answer, as the events we are talking about are fairly recent.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes managed to circumnavigate the globe going through both poles in an expedition from 1979 to 1982. He is credited by the Guinness Book of Records as the first to circumnavigate earth via both poles.
If you want to be incredibly specific and only accept a journey that used only a ship as means of transportation, then the achievement is actually very recent. Adrian Flanagan actually circumnavigated the earth vertically. Report by The Daily Telegraph on the feat