Biography
Williams was born and raised in the small town of Atlantic, Iowa. He attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, then earned a degree in engineering at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. He graduated and was commissioned in 1945. After serving in the Pacific in World War II as an executive officer aboard a Landing Ship Medium, he was stationed in Corpus Christi, Texas where he made plans to become a naval aviator. A wartime injury had required spinal fusion surgery and it was determined that this made him ineligible for flight training. He retired from the Navy in 1946 and moved to University of Wisconsin–Madison to begin graduate studies in 1947. He earned a Master's Degree and a PhD there and came under the influence of the great historians Fred Harvey Harrington, Merle Curti, and Howard K. Beale. After teaching at various other colleges, he returned to Madison in 1957 to teach in the history department.
Read more about this topic: William Appleman Williams
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