Richard E. Byrd

American military man, an aviator, navigator and adventurer who did more than any other to direct the exploration of Antarctica between 1928 and 1957. A Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, he was credited with being the first man, along with Floyd Bennett, to fly to the North Pole on 6 May 1926. His arctic base is described in his autobiography, "Alone," 1938.

He died on 11 March 1957 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Researchers of Byrd's newly discovered flight diary, discovered in January 1996, say that he actually flew short of his goal and knew it at the time. Where he actually saw the pole from his plane, his diary disproves his claim that he reached it, and they may have turned back some 150 miles short. Byrd's disqualification would hand the title of "first person to reach the North Pole" to Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who travelled over the pole in a dirigible three days after Byrd's air expedition, arriving there on 12 May 1926.