1888-1957. US aviator and explorer. The first
to fly over the North Pole (1926), he also
flew over the South Pole (1929), and led five
overland expeditions in Antarctica. See
Arctic and Antarctic tables.
At the request of President Franklin
Roosevelt, he took command of the US
Antarctic Service. Byrd maintained that new
techniques could be used as supplements to
traditional methods, rather than as
replacements for them. In holding this view,
he disagreed with Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen.