Hendrik Willem van Loon was born in Rotterdam, Holland on January 14, 1882. He emigrated to the United States in 1903 and attended Harvard and Cornell University, graduating from the latter in 1905. In 1906 he began working for the Associated Press in New York City, Washington, D.C., Moscow, and Warsaw. van Loon received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 1911, and in 1913 his book The Fall of the Dutch Republic was published. He lectured at Cornell on European History from 1915-1916. In 1921 van Loon received the Newberry Medal for The Story of Mankind. From 1922-23 he was a professor at Antioch College, Ohio, and was Associate Editor of the Baltimore Sun from 1923-24. He did his… first radio broadcast on Christmas Day, 1929, and started radio broadcasts at NBC in 1932. He did lectures for the Cunard Cruise Line on the Franconia in 1934. In 1939-40 his radio broadcasts were directed to Holland from WRVL in Boston. Hendrik Willem van Loon died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on March 11, 1944.