Leonard David Eron (pronounced Ear- On) (April 22, 1920 – May 3, 2007) was an American psychologist who conducted one of the longest spanning longitudinal studies on aggressive behavior in children to date. Based on Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann's second longitudinal study that they conducted between 1977 and 1995, (the Cross-National Television Study) lead to the conclusion that media violence causes aggressive behavior. Eron was an author of many books, articles and a constant public policy advocate on Capitol Hill. He also twice received Fulbright scholarship and the APA's Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Media Psychology. Life Len was born on April 22, 1920, in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Passaic, New Jersey. He was the son of Lithuanian immigrants. After graduating from Passaic High School, where he focused his studies on theater, he began to study on a scholarship at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. However, once his father died he decide to earn his bachelor's degree at the city college of New York, which he earned in 1941 After one semester of graduate work at Columbia University, (where he met his future wife, Madeline Marcus) pearl harbor was bombed and he was drafted into the army and chose the "ordnance" corps. He served in the campaigns of Sicily, and Italy, north Africa, and attained the rank of 1st lieutenant. During the campaigns he experienced many horrors on the beach at Anzio and other battles, to which undoubtedly contributed to his future interests in aggressive behavior. After completing his doctorate from the university of Wisconsin, Eron attended the 1948 meeting of the American Psychological Association in Philadelphia. There he was introduced to Seymour Sarason from the faculty at Yale, and was later offered a position as an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. Eron's mentor, Seymour Sarason would argue that to really contribute to child psychology, researchers needed to spend more time in the field rather than the lab and that's exactly what Eron did. He reduced time at Yale and accepted a position at the Rip Van Winkle Clinic in Columbia county, New York. There he conducted one of the longest longitudinal community epidemiological study on aggression in children (known as the Columbia County Longitudinal Study). Eron's conclusion from his study was that media violence causes aggression and was published in the American Psychologist in 1972. This led to a storm of controversy