(1887–1976), U.S. historian. Samuel Eliot Morison used his experience as a sailor in the United States Navy to write books on the nation's naval history. Born in Boston, Mass., he graduated from Harvard University and taught there for 40 years. He won the 1943 Pulitzer prize in biography for ‘Admiral of the Ocean Sea', which he shortened and revised as ‘Christopher Columbus, Mariner'. He also wrote the popular ‘Oxford History of the American People' (1965) and was coauthor of the classic textbook ‘The Growth of the American Republic' (1930). Other titles among his more than 50 books included ‘John Paul Jones' (1959), which earned him a second Pulitzer prize in biography; ‘The European Discovery of America' (Northern Voyages, 1971; Southern Voyages, 1974); and the 15-volume ‘History of United States Naval Operations in World War II' (1947–62). In addition to the Pulitzers, he also was honored with the Balzan Prize in 1963 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. He died in Boston on May 15, 1976. (See also History.)