Joseph Pulitzer arrived in America in 1864 with almost no money and almost no English. Born on April 10, 1847, in Hungary, he came to America to fight in the Civil War. After the war, Pulitzer settled in St. Louis and taught himself English by reading newspapers in the public library. He became a reporter and discovered he had a gift for finding stories that mattered to ordinary people. Pulitzer believed newspapers should do more than report facts. He thought they should expose wrongdoing and fight for people who had no voice. When he bought the New York World in 1883, he filled it with stories about unsafe factories, corrupt politicians. Unfair landlords. His reporters went undercover. One famous reporter, Nellie Bly, pretended to be mentally ill. She got herself locked inside an asylum to write about the terrible conditions. Pulitzer's style of journalism changed how newspapers worked across the country. Before he died in 1911, Pulitzer left money to Columbia University. It would fund a school of journalism and a yearly prize. The Pulitzer Prize, first awarded in 1917, is still the highest honor in American journalism.