To all the Trekkies out there, today would have been the series' creator Gene Roddenberry's birthday, who was born all the way back in 1921!
Before writing the iconic Star Trek series in 1966, Gene's career path was with the army, which saw him rise the ranks in the US army air corps. During his time here he was involved in two plane crashes, though both of which were not his fault, and then upon leaving the army he was involved in a third and final crash whilst working as a commercial pilot. After having his fill of plane crashes, Gene decided to no longer pursue any airborne-based career plans, and decided to pick up on his real passion - writing.
Gene's first writing gigs had him working on a number of police dramas and Westerns, most of which never made it past the pilot episode. On a number of occasions this was due in part to Gene clashing with the studios, his most common beef being over his demand that his shows should have multicultural casts and characters. While working on The Lieutenant, Gene also managed to piss off The Pentagon, who withdrew their support and disallowed Gene to shoot on an actual Marine base, after he went against their wishes and shot an episode that featured a white man and a black man working together as friends. Fuck you, Pentagon.
Finally, after years of busts and dealings with racist, middle-aged, rich, white dudes, Gene began work on what would become his greatest creation - Star Trek. It may be surprising to know now but back when it aired Star Trek was not the cultural phenomenon it is now. In fact the show almost found itself cancelled due to poor ratings twice during its short three season run, but both times the studio backed down on their plans after the rabid fanbase started letter writing campaigns demanding the show continue. This fandom was one of the first of its kind in pop culture, and would go on to pave the way for a lot of what we know as staples in geek fandom, such as conventions, merchandise collecting, fan theories and fan films, etc. As with all his other projects, Gene demanded that Star Trek featured a multicultural cast of characters, which lead to the world's first televised interracial kiss.
Following the end of the original series, which ended 47 days before Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon, Gene found himself type-cast to science fiction, though studios viewed him more as a guy who made science fiction that was expensive and destined to flop. This led to him finding very little work between TOS (The Original Series) and TNG (The Next Generation), with his biggest non-Star Trek break being a 70s sexploitation film called Pretty Maids All in a Row. Luckily for Gene there was now decent money in the Trekkie conventions business, and so he made many an appearance. The popularity (and money) of Trekkie fandom had studios once again pondering Star Trek's value, and so Paramount pushed forward with the Star Trek cartoon in 1973, and after the success of Star Wars, they released the Star Trek movie in 1979.
These were the last Star Trek series that Gene would have 100% investment in, as by the time of 1987's TNG hitting its 3rd season, Gene had almost no involvement in the writing and development process of the show, perhaps chiming in every now and then if something deviated hugely from his view of Star Trek lore. Gene did have about 20% of his ideas used in Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan, however as his own idea for a movie sequel was canned, which featured the Klingons travelling back in time to assassinate John F Kennedy, he again was not entirely invested.
As TNG pushed on, Gene's health problems were becoming more serious, too. He already had immense issues with drug and alcohol abuse, including cocaine addiction he landed himself during the Star Trek movie's development, and amphetamine abuse which he used to pull all-nighters when working on scripts. By 1989 Gene was left wheelchair bound by a stroke, and by his second stroke in 1991 his condition worsened still. On the 24th October 1991, Gene began struggling for air, and despite help from his doctors, he sadly passed away. Some of his ashes were shot off into space in 1992, and again in 1997.
Gene and his contribution to science fiction will always see him entitled with the mantle of rad, however it's not just his sci-fi work that earnt him this, but also his progressive thinking and demand for more cultures to be presented in the media. It's almost crazy to think there are basement dwelling Star Trek fans out there today that bitch and moan when discussing recent Star Trek episodes for featuring multiple races and sexuality, as these have always been present in Star Trek's creation. As you may tell from this, Gene leaned very much to the left on politics, and was also highly critical of organised religion, and the inequalities between them. We may associate racism towards Islam as a post-9/11 issue, however back in the 60s Gene was tackling this issue, pointing out how a hotel bombing in 1946 by Christians was considered acts by freedom fighters, whereas a Muslim car-bombing shortly after was deemed a terrorist act.
So if ever there was a day to re-visit the old Star Treks, today is most certainly the day - live long and prosper, folks.
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