1893 - Born in Knoxville, Tennessee on the 25th of November.
1918 - He serving in the army, he then travelled in Europe for a year with friend Mark Van Doren. Afterwards, he worked as teacher at Brooklyn Polytechnic.
1929 - He became a theater critic for The Nation and wrote several books, gaining acclaim through a work critical of the impact of science and technology, The Modern Temper.
1937 - He worked as a professor at Columbia University.
1940 - He also wrote biographies of Samuel Johnson and Henry David Thoreau.
1952 - He wrote books about natural issues of ecology, the southwestern desert environment, and the natural history of the Grand Canyon.