By: HISTORY.com Editors

1948

T.S. Eliot wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Published: November 13, 2009Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On November 4, 1948, T.S. Eliot wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, for his profound effect on the direction of modern poetry.

Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a long-established family. His grandfather had founded Washington University in St. Louis, his father was a businessman, and his mother was involved in local charities. Eliot took an undergraduate degree at Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne, returned to Harvard to learn Sanskrit, and then studied at Oxford. He became lifelong friends with fellow poet Ezra Pound and later moved permanently to England. In 1915, he married Vivian Haigh-Wood, but the marriage was unhappy, partly due to her mental instability. She died in an institution in 1947.

Eliot began working at Lloyd’s Bank in 1917, writing reviews and essays on the side. He founded a critical quarterly, Criterion, and quietly developed a new style of poetry. His first major work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was published in 1915 and hailed as the invention of a new kind of poetry. His long, fragmented images and use of blank verse influenced nearly all future poets, as did his masterpiece The Waste Land, published in Criterion and the American review Dial in 1922. While Eliot is best known for revolutionizing modern poetry, his literary criticism and plays were also successful.

Eliot lectured in the United States frequently in the 1930s and 40s, a time when his own worldview was undergoing rapid change as he converted to Christianity. In 1957, he married his assistant, Valerie Fletcher. He died in 1965.

Timeline

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1777

George Washington learns of effort to discredit him

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1791

Native Americans deliver crushing defeat at the Battle of the Wabash

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1842

Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd

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1918

Poet Wilfred Owen killed in action

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1922

Entrance to King Tut’s tomb discovered

British archaeologist Howard Carter and his workmen discover a step leading to the tomb of King Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

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1924

The first female governors are elected in the United States

On November 4, 1924, Miriam “Ma” Ferguson of Texas and Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming made history as the first women elected governor in the United States.

1924

California legalizes professional boxing after 10-year ban

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1928

One of New York’s most notorious gamblers is shot to death

Arnold Rothstein, New York’s most notorious gambler, is shot during a poker game at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan on November 4, 1928. He died in the hospital two days later. From an early age, Rothstein had a talent for playing numbers. As a teenager, he built a small fortune gambling in craps and […]

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1956

Soviets put a brutal end to Hungarian revolution

A spontaneous national uprising that began 12 days before in Hungary is viciously crushed by Soviet tanks and troops on November 4, 1956. Thousands were killed and wounded and nearly a quarter-million Hungarians fled the country. The problems in Hungary began in October 1956, when thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding a more […]

1960

Jane Goodall observes a chimpanzee making and using tools

In a groundbreaking discovery, primatologist Jane Goodall witnesses a chimpanzee in the act of making and using tools on November 4, 1960—an ability previously believed to be exclusive to humans. At the time of the observation, Goodall, a 26-year-old English primatologist, was conducting research at Gombe Stream National Park in Northern Tanzania, where she closely […]

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1963

General Minh takes over leadership of South Vietnam

In the aftermath of the November 1 coup that resulted in the murder of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Gen. Duong Van Minh, leading the Revolutionary Military Committee of the dissident generals who had conducted the coup, takes over leadership of South Vietnam. U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge cabled President Kennedy, “We could neither manage nor […]

1979

Iran hostage crisis begins after U.S. embassy in Tehran is stormed

Student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini send shock waves across America when they storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The radical Islamic fundamentalists took 90 hostages. The students were enraged that the deposed Shah had been allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment and they threatened to murder hostages if […]

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1990

‘Dances with Wolves’ premieres in Los Angeles

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1995

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally shot after attending a peace rally held in Tel Aviv’s Kings Square in Israel. Rabin later died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. The 73-year-old prime minister was walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a […]

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2008

Barack Obama elected as America’s first Black president

On November 4, 2008, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeats Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first African American elected to the White House. The 47-year-old Democrat garnered 365 electoral votes and nearly 53 percent of the popular vote, while his 72-year-old Republican challenger captured 173 electoral votes […]

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2008

Proposition 8 is passed in California, banning same-sex marriage

With over 13 million votes cast, California voters approve Proposition 8 on November 4, 2008, amending the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Only months earlier, in May 2008, the California Supreme Court had deemed the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, making California the second state in the country to legalize gay marriage. Thus, […]

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2016

Paris Agreement comes into effect

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