William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon, American travel writer and historian

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Born: August 27, 1939
Age in 2026: 87
Zodiac sign: Virgo
Birth year: 1939

About William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon is an American travel writer and historian. He describes his heritage as English, Irish, and Osage. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, including cross-country trips by boat and, in his best known work, about his journey in a 1975 Ford Econoline van. Blue Highways (1982) is a chronicle of a three-month-long road trip that Least Heat-Moon took throughout the United States in 1978 after he had lost his teaching job and been separated from his first wife. It won an award for Distinguished Literary Achievement, Missouri Humanities Council, 2015.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

William Least Heat-Moon timeline

1982Blue Highways (1982) is a chronicle of a three-month-long road trip that Least Heat-Moon took throughout the United States in 1978 after he had lost his teaching job and been separated from his first wife.
2015It won an award for Distinguished Literary Achievement, Missouri Humanities Council, 2015.

The world when William Least Heat-Moon was born

William Least Heat-Moon was born in 1939. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1939

#1 song"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland
Top movieGone with the Wind
Best-selling bookThe Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

Major sports momentLou Gehrig delivers his "Luckiest Man" farewell speech
Top headlineGermany invades Poland — World War II begins
Technology milestoneFirst regular television broadcasts in the US (NBC)
Defining fadThe Wizard of Oz mania
Notable inventionNylon stockings
World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
U.S. population130.9M

1939 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in William Least Heat-Moon's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure	1939	2026
Gas	$0.19	$3.45/gal
Average home	$5,200	$435,000
Average income	$2,900	$67,500
Minimum wage	$0.30	$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket	$0.25	$11.95
Postage stamp	$0.03	$0.73
Population	130.9M	341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.