Samuel Eliot Morison, Rear Admiral, United States Naval Reserve (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history that were both authoritative and highly readable. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to write a history of United States naval operations in World War II, which was published in 15 volumes between 1947 and 1962. He retired from the navy in 1951 as a rear admiral. Morison wrote the popular Oxford History of the American People (1965), and co-authored the cl