Leading off with a birthday today, and it's a big one (from my predictable point of view, anyway) Eugene "Gene" Wesley (yes, that's why Wesley Crusher) Roddenberry, aka 'the Great Bird of the Galaxy' (from a line in 'The Man Trap'), who started out studying police science, got interested in flying and became a pilot (aptly enough it's also National Aviation Day in the US today), enlisted with the air corps and flew B-17s during WWII (when he befriended a Chinese pilot named Noonien), flew commercial airliners for a while after, then joined the LAPD only to eventually leave again to pursue his dream of writing, initially scripts for various tv shows, then his own (The Lieutenant), and eventually, Star Trek (in which, wrapping up that anecdote, he named Khan Noonien Singh after his friend, in the hope that he'd hear about it and get in touch; sadly it never happened, although he tried again in TNG with Data's creator Noonien Soong). He passed away aged 70 in 1991, and was among the first to have their ashes carried into orbit (not unlike George Lucas he sort of became more of a nuisance than a benefit to his franchise in later years, and TNG only really took off once they promoted him out of being involved, but we love him anyway). Speaking of Star Trek, it's a happy birthday also to Jonathan Frakes aka Commander William T. Riker (the T is for Thomas, which was the name adopted by his identical double who was created by a transporter accident), and Diana Muldaur, who appeared a couple of times in the original series and came back as Dr. Katherine Pulaski in TNG (who among other traits somewhat obviously copied from Dr. McCoy, didn't trust transporters, gee I wonder why).
Also today quite a bit earlier, in 295 BC the first temple to Venus (goddess of love and beauty and so on, Aphrodite to the Greeks, Tara around here) was dedicated, and in 1848 the New York Herald mentioned that apparently gold had been found in California, and quite a few people took the hint and went to have a look for themselves. And lastly, in 1960 the Soviet Union launched two dogs, Belka and Strelka, into space aboard Korabl-Sputnik 2, and thankfully got them down safely again; Strelka later had puppies with another of the Soviet space programme dogs, one of which (Pushinka) was presented to John F JFK, and promptly seduced by Charlie, one of JFK's dogs, because that's how the JFK family rolls. Korabl-Sputnik 2 also carried a rabbit, a couple of rats, and 42 mice (which seems excessive, but maybe they knew something we didn't that only Douglass Adams later cottoned on to), none of which went on to get involved with the Kennedys so far as I can tell, but you never know.
_________________ Chris Cook
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