Source: Yahoo News!
Yes. Walter Cronkite has died.
But this isn't about his death. The purpose of this post is to do something that hasn't been done dealing with a known personalities passing. So instead of mourning his passing. I shall rather post a bio on this man. Who he was and why he was so important to not just American television, but important throughout the world.
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. was born Nov. 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Mo., the son and grandson of dentists. The family moved to Houston when he was 10. He joked years later that he was disappointed when he "didn't see a single damn cowboy."
He got a taste of journalism at The Houston Post, where he worked summers after high school and served as campus correspondent at the University of Texas. He also did some sports announcing at a local radio station.
Cronkite quit school after his junior year for a full-time job with the Houston Press. After a brief stint at KCMO in Kansas City, Mo., he joined United Press in 1937. Dispatched to London early in World War II, Cronkite covered the battle of the North Atlantic, flew on a bombing mission over Germany and glided into Holland with the 101st Airborne Division. He was a chief correspondent at the postwar Nuremberg trials and spent his final two years with the news service managing its Moscow bureau.
Cronkite returned to the United States in 1948 and covered Washington for a group of Midwest radio stations. He then accepted Edward R. Murrow's invitation to join CBS in 1950.
On July 7, 1952, the term "anchor" was coined to describe Cronkite's role at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which marked the first nationally-televised convention coverage.[16] Cronkite anchored the network's coverage of the 1952 presidential election as well as later conventions, until in 1964, he was temporarily replaced by the team of Robert Trout and Roger Mudd. This proved to be a mistake, and Cronkite was returned to the anchor chair for future political conventions.
From 1953 to 1957, Cronkite hosted the CBS program You Are There, which reenacted historical events, using the format of a news report. His famous last line for these programs was: "What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times... and you were there." In 1971, the show was revived and redesigned to attract an audience of teenagers and young adults on Saturday mornings. He also hosted The Twentieth Century, a documentary series about important historical events of the century which was made up almost exclusively of newsreel footage and interviews. It became a long-running hit. Cronkite also hosted a game show called It's News to Me, a game show based on news events.
Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962, a job in which he became an American icon.[9] The program expanded from 15 to 30 minutes on September 2, 1963, making Cronkite the anchor of American network television's first nightly half-hour news program.
During the early part of his tenure anchoring the CBS Evening News, Cronkite competed against NBC's anchor team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, who anchored the Huntley-Brinkley Report. For most of the 1960s, the Huntley-Brinkley Report had more viewers than Cronkite's broadcast. This began to change in the late 1960s, as RCA made a corporate decision not to fund NBC News at the levels CBS funded CBS News. Consequently, CBS News acquired a reputation for accuracy and depth in its broadcast journalism. This reputation meshed nicely with Cronkite's wire service experience, and in 1968, the CBS Evening News began to surpass The Huntley-Brinkley Report in viewership during the summer months. In that same year, the faculty of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University voted to award him the Carr Van Anda Award "for enduring contributions to journalism."[17]
In 1969, with Apollo 11, and later with Apollo 13, Cronkite received the best ratings and made CBS the most-watched television network for the missions.[1]
In 1970, Walter Cronkite received a "Freedom of the Press" George Polk Award.[1] That same year, the CBS Evening News finally dominated the American TV news viewing audience, when Huntley retired. Although NBC finally settled on the skilled and well-respected broadcast journalist John Chancellor, Cronkite proved to be more popular and continued to be top-rated until his retirement in 1981.[9] That year, President Jimmy Carter awarded Cronkite the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[1]
One of Cronkite's trademarks was ending the CBS Evening News with the phrase, "...And that's the way it is:", followed by the date (keeping to standards of objective journalism, he omitted this phrase on nights when he ended the newscast with opinion or commentary).[9] Beginning with January 16, 1980, "Day 50" of the Iran hostage crisis, Cronkite added the length of the hostages' captivity to the show's closing to remind the audience of the unresolved situation, ending only on "Day 444", January 20, 1981.[18]
For many years, Cronkite was considered one of the most trusted figures in the United States.[5] Affectionately known as "Uncle Walter", he covered many of the important news events of the era so effectively that his image and voice are closely associated with the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the Watergate scandal.[1] Enjoying the cult of personality surrounding Cronkite in those years, CBS allowed some good-natured fun-poking of its star anchorman in some episodes of the network's popular situation comedy, All in the Family, during which the lead character Archie Bunker would sometimes complain about the newsman, calling him "Pinko Cronkite."
Cronkite trained himself to speak at a rate of 124 words per minute in his newscasts, so that viewers could clearly understand him.[citation needed] In contrast, Americans average about 165 words per minute, and fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute.[19] Currently, Walter Cronkite's voice can be heard announcing CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric at the beginning of the news broadcast, and at Retirement Living TV's Daily Cafe.
Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the CBS Evening News on February 14, 1980; at the time, CBS had a policy in place that called for mandatory retirement by age 65.[25] Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a "comfortable old shoe" to his audience. By this, he meant that they could "comfortably put their foot in him like a slipper." His last day in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather.
Combined from both Wikipiedia & Yahoo News!
Easliy Wikipiedia Has a full indepth of Cronkie's famous news reports. From the Kenedy Assanition, to the Moon Race & Apollo 13
I'll leave you all with clips and commentary of the reports he is known for delivering.
Kenedy Assassination (In nine Parts & Uncut)
And that's the way it is. Seriously though, this is truly the end of an era. Thrive in Heaven, Walter Cronkite! 
