November 18th Birthday

Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr

Alan Shepard, an astronaut and retired USN Rear Admiral, was the second person, and first American in space. He was one of only 12 humans who walked on the Moon. Shephard was named as one of the nation's original seven Mercury astronauts in 1959 and in 1961 became the first American into space in His flight came three weeks after the launch of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who on 12 Apr 1961, became the first human space traveller on a one-orbit flight lasting 108 minutes.

Shephard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire in 1923.He began his naval career after graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1944, on the destroyer USS Cogswell, deployed during WW II. He subsequently entered flight training and received his wings in 1947. He worked as a test pilot before becoming one of 110 military test pilots invited by the newly formed NASA to volunteer for the first manned space flight program.

Shepard became one of the original group of seven Mercury astronauts. On May 5, 1961, Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 mission and became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space riding a Redstone rocket on a 15-minute suborbital flight that took him and his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule 115 miles in altitude and 302 miles downrange from Cape Canaveral.

Shepard was designated as the command pilot of the first manned Gemini missionBut in early 1964, Shepard was diagnosed with Ménière's disease, a condition in which fluid pressure builds up in the inner ear. This syndrome causes the semicircular canals and motion detectors to become extremely sensitive, resulting in disorientation, dizziness, and nausea. This condition caused him to be removed from flight status for most of the 1960s.

Shepard was restored to full flight status in May 1969, following corrective surgery. He was originally assigned to command Apollo 13, but as it was felt he needed more time to train, he and his crewmates swapped missions with the then crew of Apollo 14. At age 47, and the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard made his second space flight as commander of Apollo 14, on January 31–February 9, 1971, America's third successful lunar landing mission. Shepard piloted his Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the entire Apollo program. This was the first mission to successfully broadcast color television pictures from the surface of the Moon.

Following Apollo 14, Shepard returned to his position as Chief of the Astronaut Office in June, 1971. He was promoted to Rear Admiral before finally retiring both from the Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974. During his life he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor; two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, Naval Astronaut Wings, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and the Distinguished Flying Cross; recipient of the Langley Award, the Lambert trophy, the Iven C. Kincheloe Award, the Cabot Award, the Collier Trophy, and the City of New York Gold Medal. Shephard died on July 21, 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/shepard-alan.html

November 17th Birthday

Peter Edward Cook
Peter Cook was a British satirist, writer and comedian. He is widely regarded as the leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as 'the funniest man who ever drew breath'. Cook is very closely associated with the anti-establishment style of comedy that first emerged in Britain and the US in the late 1950s.

Cook was born in Torquay, Devon, in 1937. Cook meant to become a career diplomat, but unfortunately Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. He attended Pembroke College where he performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the prestigious Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became President in 1960.

While still at university, Cook wrote professionally for Kenneth Williams, for whom he created a successful West End revue show called ‘One Over the Eight’, before becoming a star of the satirical stage show, ‘Beyond the Fringe’, together with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore. The show included Cook impersonating the then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan; this was one of the first occasions that satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre. He opened The Establishment Club in Soho which gave him the opportunity to present fellow, including the American Lenny Bruce. Cook also befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club.
His comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to the popular tv show ‘Not Only... But Also’. Using few props, they created a unique style of dry and absurd television which was immediately successful, ultimately lasting for three seasons. Here Cook showcased his characters, such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the pair's Pete and Dud. Other memorable sketches include "Superthunderstingcar", a send-up of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries — satirised in a parodic TV segment on Greta Garbo.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore acted in films together, beginning with ‘The Wrong Box’ in 1966. Their best work in the medium was the cult comedy ‘Bedazzled‘, now widely regarded as a comedy classic but which was not financially successful at the time.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Cook's developing alcoholism placed a strain on his personal and professional relationships. He and Moore fashioned sketches from ‘Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again’ with new material into the stage revue ‘Behind the Fridge’. This toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York in 1973 as ‘Good Evening’. Cook frequently appeared drunk and incapable.

Cook made noteworthy appearances at the first three of the fund-raising galas staged by humourists John Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The series of benefits were retrospectively dubbed ‘The Secret Policeman's Balls’ though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the ‘Secret Policeman's Ball’ title was used.

Cook made an appearance as Richard III in 1983, both before and after death, in "The Foretelling", the first episode of ‘Blackadder’. In 1986 he appeared as a sidekick to Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in ‘The Comic Strip Presents' Mr Jolly Lives Next Door’, playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records at full volume. Cook also appeared in ‘The Princess Bride’ that year, as the "Impressive Clergyman".

Cook died on 9 January, 1995 at the age of 57, his death was officially reported as resulting from internal haemorrhaging. Ten years after his death, in January 2005, Peter Cook was ranked number one in a list entitled ‘The Comedian's Comedian’, a poll of more than 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors throughout the English speaking world.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cook

November 16th Birthday

Burgess Meredith (Born Oliver Burgess Meredith)
Meredith was an American actor best-known for portraying The Penguin in the television series Batman and Rocky Balboa's trainer Mickey Goldmill in the Rocky films. He was one of only two people to star in four episodes of The Twilight Zone.

Meredith was born in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1994, Meredith published his autobiography, which he titled ‘So Far, So Good’. In the book he confessed that he suffered from violent mood swings which were caused by cyclothymia, a form of bipolar disorder. Meredith died of complications due to Alzheimer's disease and melanoma on September 9, 1997.

Meredith became known for playing The Penguin on the television series Batman. His role as the Penguin was so well-received that the show's writers always had a script featuring the Penguin ready whenever Meredith was available. He appeared on the show more times during its run than any other villain.

He developed his grunting Penguin laugh out of necessity. Meredith had given up smoking some 20-odd years earlier, but his character was required to smoke with a cigarette holder. The smoke would get caught in his throat and he would start coughing. Rather than constantly ruin takes in this matter, he developed the laugh to cover it up. "Actually, it was a pretty funny noise for a penguin to make," said Meredith. "I sounded more like a duck."

Meredith served in the US Army Air Forces in WW II, reaching the rank of captain. He was discharged in 1944 to work on the movie ‘The Story of GI Joe’. In his twilight years, he played Jack Lemmon's character's father in ‘Grumpy Old Men’ and its sequel, ‘Grumpier Old Men’. He was Academy Award-nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his roles in ‘The Day of the Locust’ and ‘Rocky’. Another notable role was as Goldie Hawn's landlord in’ Foul Play’.

While best known for his film work, Meredith was also an influential actor and director for the stage. He made his Broadway debut as Peter in Eva Le Gallienne's production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and became a star in ‘Winterset’ which became his film debut the following year.

Because of his very liberal political views, he collided with Senator Joseph McCarthy and was blacklisted from films in the late 1950s. Meredith, one might say, got revenge on McCarthy by portraying Joseph Welch, the man who humiliated McCarthy on national television, in ‘Tail Gunner Joe’.

Meredith was also a distinguished theatre director, winning a Tony Award nomination for his 1974 Broadway staging of ‘Ulysses in Nighttown’. Meredith also shared a Special Tony Award with James Thurber for their collaboration on A Thurber Carnival (1960). For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Burgess has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6904 Hollywood Boulevard.

Personal Quotes
"I did 'Batman' for two reasons, one of which was the salary. The other was that, after the first few episodes, 'Batman' became the in-thing to do. Everybody...would either play a villain or appear as himself in that cameo showcase where a celebrity would poke his head through the window of a building that Batman and Robin were climbing... Actually, we didn't get as much money from the show as you might think, although we were paid decent money for the feature film version. The main impetus to continue appearing on 'Batman' - beyond the desire to get some TV work - was that it was fashionable."
"I was born a character actor. I was never really a leading man type."
"I'll just take amusement at being a paradox."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Meredith
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0580565/

Editor’s Note

This guy was my favourite Batman character. His penguin is infinitely better than the creepy Danny De Vito version.

November 12th Birthdays

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and woman's suffrage movements in the United States.

Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she was an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed a number of issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce laws, the economic health of the family, and birth control. She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.

After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, along with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while continuing to deny women, black and white, the same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately 20 years later.

Quotes:

"The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way."

"I obstinately refused to obey one with whom I supposed I was entering into an equal relation." (Requesting that the phrase “promise to obey” be removed from the wedding vows).

“The custom of calling women Mrs. John This and Mrs. Tom That and colored men Sambo and Zip Coon, is founded on the principle that white men are lords of all."

Speaking on behalf of black women, she stated that “not allowing them to vote condemned African American freedwomen ‘to a triple bondage that man never knows’, that of slavery, gender, and race”.

Further reading:

The Womans Bible
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr096.html






Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651 or in 1648 – April 17, 1695), also known by her full name Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asbaje (or Asuaje) y Ramírez de Santillana, born as Juana Inés Ramírez de Santillana.

Sor Juana was a self-taught Novohispana scholar (mathematician [1]), poet, a writer of the Baroque school and nun. Though she lived in a colonial era when Mexico was part of the Spanish empire, she is considered a Mexican writer, and a precursor to later Mexican literature.

Sor Juana was born in San Miguel Nepantla. Sor Juana began life as the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish nobleman, at a time when bloodlines strictly dictated class and status. Her mother was born in Yecapixtla. Her grandfather owned property in San Miguel Nepantla, and Sor Juana spent her early years living with her mother on his hacienda. Sor Juana was a gifted child who hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. She learned how to read and write at the age of 3. By adolescence, she had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children.

In 1664, at age sixteen, Juana was sent to live in Mexico City, and came under the tutelage of the Vicerreine Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo.

There is ongoing debate by some modern authors, questioning whether she had a personal romantic life while in the convent. Some have even suggested that she was lesbian or bisexual, as affectionate love is often nuanced in her poems both about men and women, and her language is often a sensory and sometimes seeming ecstatic and even erotic. However, others point to poetic traditions in pre-conquest Mexico wherein poetry was high art, and relationship with the gods was often spoken about in terms of erotic lyricism. Thus the debate continues about whether her writings are solely allegorical or have some literal reflection of personal affairs.

In her time, the convent was the only refuge in which a female could properly attend to education of her mind, spirit, body and soul. In Sor Juana's era, educating girls was not only non-existent, but often considered by Spanish prelates to be the dark work of the Devil.

Nonetheless, Sor Juana wrote literature centered on freedom. In her poem "Redondillas" she defends a woman's right to be respected as a human being. In "Hombres necios" (Stubborn men), she criticizes the sexism of the society of her time, poking fun at and revealing the hypocrisy of men who publicly condemn prostitutes, yet privately pay women to perform on them what they have just said is an abomination to God.

Sor Juana asks the sharp question in this age-old matter of the purity/whoredom split found in base male mentality: "Who sins more, she who sins for pay? Or he who pays for sin?"

Developing her themes further, she wrote a romantic comedy entitled 'Los empeños de una casa' about a brother and a sister entangled in webs of love, elucidating the themes of love and jealousy. She did not moralize, but rather, in the spirit of her lifetime interests, inquired how these deeply emotional matters shaped and carved a woman's pursuit of liberty, knowledge, education and freedom to live her life in self-sovereignty.

Her 'thinking out loud' was especially dangerous because the Counter Reformation was raging. Anyone who challenged societal values and ecclesiastical dogma could be marked by the Church as a heretic, and thereby harmed by the Church bearing false witness against the person; by the Church silencing them; forcing them into penitence, or else stripping them of property and assets, including those of one's family; they could be tortured, exiled, imprisoned or murdered.

Her 'thinking out loud' was especially dangerous because the Counter Reformation was raging. Anyone who challenged societal values and ecclesiastical dogma could be marked by the Church as a heretic, and thereby harmed by the Church bearing false witness against the person; by the Church silencing them; forcing them into penitence, or else stripping them of property and assets, including those of one's family; they could be tortured, exiled, imprisoned or murdered.

Matters came to a head in 1690, when a letter was published attacking Sor Juana's focus on the sciences, and suggesting that she should devote her time to soft theology. However, powerful representatives from the Spanish court were her mentors and she was widely read in Spain, being called "the Tenth Muse". She was lauded as the most prominent poet of the post-conquest American Continent. Her work was printed by the first printing press of the American Continent in Mexico City.

Further reading:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sorjuana/

November 11th

Veterans Day - United States
Armistice Day - United Kingdom, France and Belgium
Rememberance Day - Australia
Poppy Day - Canada

Is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in time of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on November 11th to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918 (major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice). The day was specifically dedicated by King George V on November 7, 1919.

O Valiant Hearts

The camp has had its day of song;
The sword, the bayonet, the plume
Have crowded out of rhyme too long
The plough, the anvil and the loom!
O, not upon our tented fields
Are Freedom's heroes bred alone;
The training of the work-shop yields
More heroes true than War has known!

Who drives the bolt, who shapes the steel,
May, with a heart as valiant, smite,
As he, who sees a foeman reel
In blood before his blow of might!
The skill that conquers space and time,
That graces life, that lightens toil,
May spring from courage more sublime
Than that, which makes a realm its spoil.

Let, Labor, then, look up and see,
His craft no pith of honor lacks;
The soldier's rifle yet shall be
Less honored than the woodman's axe!
Let Art his own appointment prize,
Nor deem that gold or outward height
Can compensate the worth that lies
In tastes that breed their own delight.

And may the time draw nearer still
When men this sacred truth shall heed,
That from the thought and from the will
Must all that raises man proceed!
Though Pride should hold our calling low,
For us shall duty make it good;
And we from truth to truth shall go
Till life and death are understood.

- Epes Sargent

November 10th – It Happened on this Day

1619 – René Descartes has the dreams that inspire his ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ or’ In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated’. It was also at that time that Descartes discovered that eating certain foods influence the dreams of an individual and swore off of goose liver pie forever.

1793 – A Goddess of Reason is proclaimed by the French Convention at the suggestion of Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette. Now Chaumette was known to be strongly opposed to women actively participating in politics and yet he insisted that a Goddess of Reason be presented in the guise of an rather erotically dressed actress and the other men at the Convention ‘oooh’d and aaah’d‘, hammered their hands upon their knees and secretly thought of pickup lines to say to the actress and what types of champagne and chocolate they could possibly get their hands on. At the same time, Chaumette, advocated violence on all accounts and constantly called for more blood-letting for the Revolution.

Unfortunately for Chaumette, Maximilien Robespierre was also in attendance became annoyed because Chaumette was blocking the view, announced that the actress was a beaver muncher, called Chaumette a Hébertists (we ain’t talking about the smoking kind), had Chaumette arrested, imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace and later guillotined. Hence, Chaumette became the unwitting catalyst for the Reign of Terror. That’s right – blame him.

1871 – Henry Morton Stanley locates missing explorer and missionary, Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, allegedly greeting him with the words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” At which time, Livingstone rattled off a string of complaints about the weather, the bugs, the trees, the animals, the lack of good beer, clean shirts and no good bread. Livingstone’s last two traveling companions stepped back from him and disappeared in the forest.

1951 – Direct-Dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the US. The ‘unexplained charges’ on the telephone bill also begins and toll-calling was added, but was never explained.....

1958 – The Hope Diamond is donated to the Smithsonian Institution by New York diamond merchant Harry Winston. Also faintly heard in the background was Winston muttering “It’s their damn problem now”.

November 9th Birthdays

Benjamin Banneker


Benjamin Banneker was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer. Although it is difficult to verify details of Benjamin Banneker's family history, it appears that he was a grandson of a European American named Molly Welsh. The story goes that Molly met a slave named Banneka when she purchased him to help establish a farm located near the future site of Ellicott's Mills, west of Baltimore, Maryland. This part of Maryland was out of the mainstream of the colonial South, and as result had a more tolerant attitude toward African Americans than did colonial areas in which slavery was more prevalent.

Perhaps a member of the Dogon tribe (reputed to have a historical knowledge of astronomy), Banneka may have cleared Molly's land, solved irrigation problems, and implemented a crop rotation for her. Soon thereafter, Molly freed and married Banneka, who may have shared his knowledge of astronomy with her. Benjamin's mother, Mary, was the daughter of Molly and Banneka.

Although born after Banneka's death, Benjamin may have acquired some of his grandfather's knowledge via Molly, who appears to have taught him how to read, farm, and interpret the sky as Banneka had taught her. Little is known about Benjamin's father Robert, a first-generation slave who had fled his owner.

As a young teenager, Banneker met and befriended Peter Heinrichs, a Quaker farmer who established a school near Banneker's family's farm. Heinrichs shared his personal library with Banneker and provided Banneker's only classroom instruction. (During Banneker's lifetime, Quakers were leaders in the antislavery movement and advocates of racial equality in accordance with their Testimony of Equality belief.)

Apparently using as a model a pocket watch that he had borrowed from a merchant or traveller, Banneker carved wooden replicas of each piece and used the parts to make a clock that struck hourly. He completed the clock in 1753, at the age of 21. The clock continued to work until his death.

Then in 1771, a white Quaker family, the Ellicotts, moved into the area and built mills along the Patapsco River. Banneker supplied their workers with food, and studied the mills.

In 1788 he began his more formal study of astronomy as an adult, using books and equipment that George Ellicott lent to him. The following year, he sent George Ellicott his work on the solar eclipse. In February 1791, Major Andrew Ellicott, a member of the same family, hired Banneker to assist in a survey of the boundaries of the 100-square-mile (260 km2) federal district (initially, the Territory of Columbia; later, the District of Columbia) that Maryland and Virginia would cede to the federal government of the United States for the nation's capital in accordance with the federal Residence Act of 1790 and later legislation. Banneker's activities on the survey team resembled those used in celestial navigation during his lifetime. His duties consisted primarily of making astronomical observations at Jones Point in Alexandria, Virginia, to ascertain the location of the starting point for the survey and of maintaining a clock that he used when relating points on the surface of the Earth to the positions of stars at specific times.

Because of illness and the difficulties in helping to survey the area at the age of 59, Banneker left the boundary survey in April 1791 and returned to his home at Ellicott's Mills to work on an ephemeris. At Ellicott's Mills, Banneker made astronomical calculations that predicted solar and lunar eclipses for inclusion in his ephemeris. He placed the ephemeris and its subsequent revisions in a six-year series of almanacs, which were published for the years 1792 through 1797 in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He also kept a series of journals that contained his notebooks for astronomical observations, his diary, and his mathematical calculations. The title page of Banneker's 1792 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris stated that the publication contained:

the Motions of the Sun and Moon, the True Places and Aspects of the Planets, the Rising and Setting of the Sun, Place and Age of the Moon, &c.—The Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, Festivals, and other remarkable Days; Days for holding the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the United States, as also the useful Courts in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Also—several useful Tables, and valuable Receipts.—Various Selections from the Commonplace–Book of the Kentucky Philosopher, an American Sage; with interesting and entertaining Essays, in Prose and Verse—the whole comprising a greater, more pleasing, and useful Variety than any Work of the Kind and Price in North America.

Supported by Andrew, George and Elias Ellicott and heavily promoted by the Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery of Maryland and of Pennsylvania, the early editions of the almanacs achieved commercial success. After these editions were published, William Wilberforce and other prominent abolitionists praised Banneker and his works in the House of Commons of Great Britain. Banneker expressed his views on slavery and racial equality in a letter to Thomas Jefferson and in other documents that he placed within his 1793 almanac. The almanac contained copies of his correspondence with Jefferson, poetry by the African American poet Phillis Wheatley and by the English anti-slavery poet William Cowper, and anti-slavery speeches and essays from England and America.

On February 15, 1980, the United States Postal Service issued in Annapolis, Maryland, a 15 cent stamp that illustrated a portrait of Banneker. An image of Banneker standing behind a short telescope mounted on a tripod is superimposed upon the portrait. The device shown in the stamp resembles Andrew Ellicott's transit and equal altitude instrument, which is presently in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The stamp is part of the Postal Service's Black Heritage stamp series.






Carl Sagan


Carl Edward Sagan (1934-1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which has been seen by more than 500 million people in over 60 countries. A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. One of the last books he wrote was Pale Blue Dot. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.

He attended the University of Chicago, where he participated in the Ryerson Astronomical Society, received a B.A. with general and special honors (1954), a B.S. (1955) and a M.S. (1956) in physics, before earning a Ph.D. degree (1960) in astronomy and astrophysics. During his time as an undergraduate, Sagan spent some time working in the laboratory of the geneticist H. J. Muller. From 1960 to 1962 he was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.

From 1962 to 1968, Sagan worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sagan lectured and did research annually at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University in New York. He became a full Professor at Cornell in 1971, and he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies there. From 1972 to 1981, Sagan was the Associate Director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell.

Sagan was a scientist connected with the American space program since its inception. From the 1950s onward, he worked as an adviser to NASA. One of his many duties during his tenure at the space agency included briefing the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon. Sagan contributed to many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the solar system during his lifetime, arranging experiments on many of the expeditions. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft destined to leave the solar system that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. Sagan assembled the first physical message that was sent into space: a gold-anodized plaque, attached to the space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. Pioneer 11, also carrying another copy of the plaque, was launched the following year. He continued to refine his designs throughout his lifetime; the most elaborate message he helped to develop and assemble was the Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes in 1977. Sagan often challenged the decisions to fund the Space Shuttle and Space Station at the expense of further robotic missions.

At Cornell University, Sagan taught a course on critical thinking until his death in 1996 from a rare bone marrow disease. The course had only a limited number of seats. Although hundreds of students applied each year, only about 20 were chosen to attend each semester. The course was discontinued immediately after Sagan's death, but it was resumed by Dr. Yervant Terzian in 2000.

Sagan's contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of that planet's surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, Planets. His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of 500 °C (900 °F). As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962.

Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter's moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable for life. Europa's subsurface ocean of water was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo. Sagan also helped solve the mystery of the reddish haze seen on Titan, revealing that it is composed of complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto the moon's surface.

He further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter as well as seasonal changes on Mars. Sagan established that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense with pressures increasing steadily all the way down to the surface. He also perceived global warming as a growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter's clouds, given the planet's dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied the observed color variations on Mars’ surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms.

He is also the 1994 recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare."

Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms. So persuasive was he that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETI published in the journal Science and signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners. This was a tremendous turnaround in the respectability of this controversial field. Sagan also helped Dr. Frank Drake write the Arecibo message, a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing extraterrestrials about Earth.

Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal Icarus for twelve years. He co-founded the Planetary Society, the largest space-interest group in the world, with over 100,000 members in more than 149 countries, and was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Sagan believed that the Drake equation, on substitution of reasonable estimates, suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations highlighted by the Fermi paradox suggests technological civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm and eventually becoming a spacefaring species.

Sagan was skeptical of reports of UFO. He thought scientists and investigators should examine them to address the widespread public interest in UFO reports. In 1964, he had several conversations on the subject with Jacques Vallee.

Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical and empirical fallacies regarding UFOs and the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical and pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports and that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study.

Editors Note: Truly an inspiration to those of us who look at the world as part of the universe and not the center of the universe. There is so much to write and discuss on such a phenomenal person who is a personal hero of my husband and I, that we don’t have enough space for it all. Thank you, Carl, for asking the primary questions: How and Why?

For further reading:

http://www.carlsagan.com/
www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/sagan_science.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_Extraterrestrial_Intelligence