Rather than a stamp issued to commemorate an event from history, this was issued in conjunction with Adm. Richard E. Byrd's 1933 expedition to the Antarctic. He first ventured there in 1928, where he established the base Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf. The following year, he and three companions flew to the South Pole and back. It was during the 1933 expedition that Byrd spent five months alone in a hut near the South Pole. He described the experience in detail in his book, Alone. Following the expedition that prompted this stamp, Byrd returned to Antarctica in 1939, 1946, and the late 1950s. Prior to his ventures southward, Byrd received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his 1926 overflight of the North Pole with Floyd Bennett.