1. William Raymond Manchester was an American author, biographer, and historian.
18 Facts About William Manchester
1. 2.
William Manchester was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages.
3.
William Manchester was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award.
4.
William Manchester served in the Battle of Okinawa, was severely wounded on June 5,1945, and was promoted to sergeant in July and awarded the Purple Heart.
5.
In 1953, William Manchester published his novel The City of Anger, set in Baltimore and dealing with inner city life and the numbers racket, subjects William Manchester had learned about as a big city reporter.
6.
In 1955, William Manchester became an editor for Wesleyan University and the Wesleyan University Press and spent the rest of his career at the university.
7.
William Manchester later became an adjunct professor of history, adjunct professor emeritus, and writer-in-residence at the university.
8.
William Manchester stated this in the end notes, as well as denying any attempt at a chronological account.
9.
William Manchester wrote of World War II in several other books, including a three-part biography, The Last Lion, of Winston Churchill.
10.
William Manchester wrote a biography of General Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar.
11.
William Manchester's best-selling book, The Death of a President, is a detailed account of the assassination of United States President John F Kennedy, who had been the subject of an earlier book by Manchester.
12.
In 1964, William Manchester was commissioned by the Kennedy family to write the book.
13.
William Manchester, who retraced the movements of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald before the assassination, tentatively concluded, based on his study of Oswald's psychology and their similar training as Marine sharpshooters, that Oswald had acted alone.
14.
The suit was settled in 1967, reportedly with William Manchester's agreeing to drop certain passages dealing with details of Kennedy's family life.
15.
William Manchester was initially reluctant to collaborate with anyone to finish the work, but in October 2003, he asked Paul Reid, a friend and writer for The Palm Beach Post, to complete the Churchill biography.
16.
William Manchester was the recipient of the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award, among other awards.
17.
William Manchester married Julia Brown Marshall on March 27,1948.
18.
William Manchester died at the age of 82 on June 1,2004, and is interred at Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut.