John Joseph O'Neill (1889–1953), of the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the '' New York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and compet ...

'', along with William L. Laurence of the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Howard Blakeslee of AP,

Gobind Behari Lal Gobind Behari Lal was an Indian-American journalist and independence activist. A relative and close associate of Lala Har Dayal, he joined the Ghadar Party and participated in the Indian independence movement. He arrived the United States on a ...

Universal Service Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country. An example of this concept is found in the US Tel ...

and David Dietz of

Scripps-Howard The E. W. Scripps Company, also known as Scripps, is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by E. W. Scripps, Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a ...

, won the 1937

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

for Reporting "for their coverage of science at the

tercentenary An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded. Most countries celebrate national anniversaries, typically called national days. These could be the date of independence of the nation or the adoption o ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

." He was a self-taught journalist whose formal education did not go beyond public schooling. He is also the author of ''Prodigal genius; the life of Nikola Tesla'' (1944), which was published in 18 editions in German and English. and several other non-technical books on 20th century science. In 1953 he observed a feature on the Moon, on the western shore of

Mare Crisium Mare Crisium (Latin ''crisium'', the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. Mare Crisium is a basin of Nectarian age. It was formed by the flooding of basaltic lava that fill ...

, which he interpreted as a giant natural bridge, but it turned out to be an illusion. Now this illusion is known as O'Neill's Bridge. He died at his home in

Freeport, New York Freeport is a Political subdivisions of New York State#Village, village in the town of Hempstead, New York, Hempstead, in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on the South Shore (Long Island), South Shore of Long Island, in New York (state), ...

on August 30, 1953.

References

Pulitzer Prize for Reporting winners 1889 births 1953 deaths {{US-journalist-19thC-stub