Born October 25, 1888,
Winchester, Virginia
Died March 11, 1957,
Boston, Massachusetts
Richard Evelyn Byrd dedicated most of his life to exploring the earth’s two polar caps and was celebrated in the United States for his accomplishments. Like Norwegian Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen, Byrd imagined himself a polar explorer from an early age. He wrote in his diary at age 14 that he wanted to be the first man to explore the North Pole, although Robert Edwin Peary and Matthew A. Henson (see separate entries) would eventually prevent Byrd from achieving that distinction.
Byrd was born in Winchester, Virginia, on October 25, 1888, into one of the state’s most prominent families. He was a descendant of Lord Delaware, as well as William Byrd II, the founder of Richmond. His brother Harry served as governor of Virginia and then U.S. senator for 32 years. At age 13 Byrd traveled alone to the Philippines—which the United States had conquered in 1898 in the Spanish-American War—and lived with a family friend who had become a judge in the new administration of the Philippines. He stayed for a year before boarding a British steam ship, which took him on a journey around the world, stopping in India, Suez, England, and New York.
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