Portrait of Milton Caniff

Birthday profile

Milton Caniff

Milton Caniff, American cartoonist (died 1988)

Born
February 28, 1907
Died
April 3, 1988
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1907

About Milton Caniff

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips. == Biography == Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff did cartoons for local newspapers while studying at Stivers High School (now Stivers School for the Arts) in Dayton, Ohio. At Ohio State University, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi fraternity and later illustrated for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual). Graduating in 1930, Caniff began at the Columbus Dispatch where he worked with the noted cartoonists Billy Ireland and Dudley Fisher, but Caniff's position was eliminated during the Great Depression. Caniff related later that he had been uncertain of whether to pursue acting or cartooning as a career and that Ireland said, "Stick to your inkpots, kid, actors don't eat regularly." He died on April 3, 1988, and was buried in the Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York. === Comic strips === In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist job with the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, drawing the comic strips Dickie Dare and The Gay Thirties, then inherited a panel cartoon named Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp quit the feature. Caniff was also hired by his friend Bil Dwyer when Dwyer took over the Chic Young-created comic strip Dumb Dora in 1932, and needed help while learning the routines of a daily cartoon strip.

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

Career and life highlights

Milton Caniff timeline

  1. Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.
  2. Caniff was also hired by his friend Bil Dwyer when Dwyer took over the Chic Young-created comic strip Dumb Dora in 1932, and needed help while learning the routines of a daily cartoon strip.
  3. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947 for work published during 1946, which included both Steve Canyon and Terry and the Pirates as well.

The world when Milton Caniff was born

Milton Caniff was born in 1907. 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 1907

  • Best-selling book"The Lady of the Decoration" – Frances Little

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentChicago Cubs win first of back-to-back World Series titles
  • Top headlinePanic of 1907 — financial crisis leads to Federal Reserve creation
  • Technology milestoneFirst commercial helicopter design
  • World population~1.67B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderTheodore Roosevelt
  • U.S. population86.0M

1907 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Milton Caniff's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19072026
Population86.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. 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.