Today is Carl Sagan’s birthdate. He was born on Nov 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, NY, USA.

Check out: https://carlsagan.com/ … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan … https://www.biography.com/scientist/carl-sagan

An amazing communicator and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Sagan is probably most well-known for his groundbreaking (or should I say skybreaking) television show: COSMOS: A PERSONAL JOURNEY, the most watched PBS series until 1990. The show has been seen by 500 million people across 60 countries.

But with intelligence and charisma, Sagan was envied and resisted by peers throughout his life. Two examples include:

• Before the end of high school, he entered an essay contest in which he posed the question of whether human contact with advanced life forms from another planet might be as disastrous for people on Earth as it was for Native Americans when they first had contact with Europeans. The subject was considered controversial, but his rhetorical skill won over the judges, and they awarded him first prize.
• Harvard denied Sagan tenure (perhaps due to envy from tenured professors with less public recognition than him) so he became well-known for his leadership at Cornell University.

Unfortunately, Sagan died at the age of 62 in 1996 due to myelodysplasia. Fortunately, Sagan inspired many others to follow in his footsteps and carry the torch for creative thinking and science communication.

Today’s haiku: HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARL SAGAN

thank you for “billions”,

Neal deGrasse Tyson and your

partner, Ann Druyan

Druyan, executive producer and writer of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, accepting the Peabody Award in 2014