1888 - 1957
Explorer

The Fascination with Exploration.

Born to an established family, Richard E. Byrd — whose brother, Harry Flood Byrd, was governor of, and later U.S. senator from, Virginia — attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and started an officer's career through which he rose to the rank of commander. Although he was forced to retire in 1916 because of a bad leg, he remained active in a variety of land posts, in particular in Pensacola, Florida, where he learned to fly. Throughout he remained fascinated with the various attempts that surrounded polar exploration and soon convinced several industrialists as well as the National Geographic Society to support a flight attempt to the North Pole from the islands of Spitsbergen north of Norway, a preferred departure point for air expeditions. In May 1926 Byrd succeeded in flying to the North Pole. Although his...