Little America (exploration base)

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For the hotel group, see Little America Hotels.

Little America is an Antarctic exploration base, located on the Ross Ice Shelf, south of the Bay of Whales. It was established in 1929 by Richard Byrd, and used frequently afterwards by Byrd and other explorers. In the late 1950s, it served as the American base in the South Polar program in the IGY.

Admiral Richard Byrd led the first Antarctic expedition that used airplanes in Antarctica, and Byrd was the first to travel by air over the South Pole, completing a journey in hours that had taken months by Amundsen and Scott. Byrd was the first man to see the pole since Scott, and, unable to land, could only drop a bag with a flag. While southbound, Byrd's flight had been unable to climb over the mountains until two bags of supplies, other than fuel, were dropped.

Byrd also tried an early helicopter, but it crashed fairly soon. Little America, the base of operations, established the first successful radio broadcasting from Antarctica, making regular broadcasts that could be picked up by household radio sets in the United States, more than 11,000 miles away around the Earth's curvature.

Many souvenir letters were sent from Little America, using a commemorative postage stamp issued by the U.S. government. They are readily available at modest prices.

Byrd spent months by himself deep inland beginning in late March 1934 making weather and auroral observations, but got very sick due to the fumes from his stove, radio generator and pressure lantern. Although he made no mention of this fact to his men in Little America during radio contact, they became suspicious that something was wrong. After several aborted attempts, an overland expedition from Little America fought the cold and dark and reached him in August. Byrd was finally able to return to Little America on October 1934. The story of his solitary stay in temperatures down to -82 °F (-63 °C) is told in his 1938 book Alone.

In a later expedition to Antarctica, Byrd's expedition spotted Little America's towers still standing.