1989: Writer, critic, and teacher Robert Penn Warren died. During his long and distinguished literary career, Warren was twice associated with the Library of Congress. In 1944-45, he served the Library as consultant in poetry and in 1986 Warren was named the first poet laureate of the United States. Born in Guthrie, Kentucky, in 1905, Warren attended Vanderbilt University after an accidental eye injury caused him to forgo his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. He roomed with Allen Tate at Vanderbilt and befriended Donald Davidson, as well as one of his teachers, John Crowe Ransom, forming a group of Southern poets called the Fugitives. From 1922-25, they published a bi-monthly magazine called The Fugitive. Several members of the group went on to urge preservation of Southern agrarian values in the 1930 manifesto I'll Take My Stand. (Source: Library of Congress)