Walter Lord was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1917. When he was seven years old, he traveled across the Atlantic on the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic. He attended Princeton University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and then studied law at Yale University but paused his pursuit of a law degree to enlist in the US Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor, working as a code clerk in London. After completing his service, he returned to Yale to complete his law degree. He worked as an editor and copywriter for an advertising agency while pursuing a writing career. Lord wrote a total of 11 books, all of which became bestsellers, primary on subjects related to the history of armed conflict, including works about WWII, the Alamo, and exploration. A Night to Remember, published in 1955, was a tremendous success, and was soon made into a feature film. Lord published the sequel to A Night to Remember, entitled The Night Lives On: Thoughts, Theories and Revelations about the Titanic, in 1987, the year following the location of the Titanic’s wreckage. He served as a consultant to James Cameron for the Academy Award-winning film Titanic, which drew on many of the accounts that Lord presented in his work.