Walter Cronkite Biography

Fast Facts

• Lost an election for president of his University of Texas freshman class to a high-school friend, Joe Greenhill, who later became chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court
• Called University of Oklahoma football games for an Oklahoma City radio station in 1937
• As a correspondent for UPI during WWII, parachuted into the Netherlands with the 101st Airborne Division
• Also landed in Normandy on D-day and flew on bombing missions over Germany
• Was the first TV-news personality to be called an "anchor," when he headed CBS's coverage of the 1952 political conventions
• Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981
• Retired from anchoring the CBS Evening News in 1981
• Inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1985; received numerous awards for broadcast journalism, including multiple Emmys and the Alfred I
• duPont-Columbia University Award
• Wrote his autobiography, A Reporter's Life, in 1996
• In 2006, was presented with the Ambassador of Exploration Award, becoming the first individual who wasn't a NASA employee or an astronaut to be honored