Renaissance Florence

The award-winning British historian John Harold Plumb wrote more than thirty books, including The First Four Georges, In the Light of History, and Royal Heritage.

Born in 1911 in Leicester, England, to parents of modest means, he failed to win a place at Cambridge and earned his first degree from the University of Leicester in 1933. That year, he moved to Christ's, Cambridge.

In World War II, he worked at Bletchley Park on the top-secret project to break the Germans' Enigma code but then returned to Christ's, where he became a fellow in 1946 and spent the rest of his working life. In 1966, he was appointed professor of modern English history. He was elected master of his college in 1978 and knighted in 1982.