This week in Star Trek history: Gene Roddenberry's birthday

Gene Roddenberry with U.S.S. Enterprise model

It was today, August 19th, back in 1921 that the “Great Bird of the Galaxy”, the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, was born. He shares his birthday with fellow Star Trek alumni Diana Muldaur and Jonathan Frakes.

Roddenberry was born in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in Los Angeles. He flew 89 combat missions in World War II and was an officer with the LAPD before he made the leap into writing television.

Roddenberry’s first writing credit was on the TV series “Mr. District Attorney” in 1954. It would be just 10 years before filming started on the original pilot for Star Trek, “The Cage”. 56 years after that first pilot filmed, Star Trek is (obviously) still going strong, and thanks to the famous credits “created by Gene Roddenberry”, he’s still having entries added to his IMDb page today.

Roddenberry passed away on October 24th, 1991, at the age of 70; he would have been 99 years old today.