H. G. Wells

EARLY LIFE 

He was born Herbert George Wells at Atlas House, 162 High Street in Bromley, Kent on September 21, 1866. (A plaque at 47 High Street marks his birthplace).

His father, Joseph, was a former domestic gardener and at the time of his birth a retail china shop owner which also sold sporting goods.

Joseph Wells was also a professional Kent cricketer. He was the first man to take four first class wickets with four successive balls playing against Sussex in 1862.

In 1877 an accident left Joseph Wells with a fractured thigh. The accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer and his earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss.

Joseph's mother, Sarah Neal, was a not very efficient domestic servant, who later became a housekeeper.

Both parents were members of the working class who earned a meagre income.  An inheritance had allowed them to acquire a shop selling china and sporting goods, but it failed to prosper.

Photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1920

One of four children, Herbert was the spoilt youngest child. He was called "Bertie" in the family.

When Herbert was 8, the son of the landlord of The Bell at Bromley threw him in the air and shouted "Whose kid are you?" The boy landed awkwardly and broke his leg. As young Herbert lay on the sofa recovering, the landlord's wife sent in books for him to read. From that time he was in love with reading.

Snowed in one winter at the stately home Uppark, Midhurst, where his mother was the housekeeper, young Herbert produced a daily newspaper called the Uppark Alarmist. He also found a telescope in one of the attics with which he looked at moon craters.

In 1874 Herbert entered Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy, a private school where he studied until 1880.

CAREER 

As a teenager Wells worked several apprenticeships, including a chemist's apprentice in Midhurst, West Sussex, to help pay for family costs.

During his final apprenticeship between 1880 and 1883, Wells spent an unhappy time as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium, Hyde's.

In 1883 his Hyde's employer dismissed Wells, claiming to be dissatisfied with him. The young man was reportedly not displeased with this ending to his apprenticeship as it allowed him to become a pupil teacher at Midhurst Grammar school.

The following year Wells successfully obtained a place at the Normal School of Science (later the Royal College of Science, now part of Imperial College) as a trainee science teacher. He entered the college with a scholarship which entitled him to free tuition and a guinea a week living costs. At the college he only excelled in zoology.

At the Normal School of Science Wells studied biology under T. H. Huxley.

The school year 1886 - 1887 was the last year of his studies. Having previously successfully passed his exams in both biology and physics, Wells' lack of interest in geology resulted in his failure to pass and the loss of his scholarship.

After his time at the Royal College of Science Wells got a job at a school on the Welsh borders but a football injury which seriously damaged his kidney meant he had to resign from his job. As he recovered at home he began to read and write.

At first Wells struggled to make ends meet. In one year he only sold one short story for £1.

Between 1888-94 Wells continued his writing with increasing success, while working with a university correspondence college as a tutor.

In 1889–90, Wells managed to find a post as an assistant master at Henley House School, a private school, where he taught science to Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne.

Wells studying in London c. 1890

His first published work was the Text-book of Biology, which was published by the University Correspondence College Press in two volumes in 1893.

Wells began writing short humorous articles for journals such as The Pall Mall Gazette. The author had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme. Wells readily agreed and wrote his first novel The Time Machine. He was paid £100 on its publication by Heinemann in 1895, which first published the story in serial form in the January to May editions of The New Review.

During World War 1 after witnessing the horrific marches to the front in the face of sniper fire, mines, mud filled trenches etc, Wells devised an aerial rope-way system to do the same job.

Wells longed to be recognised as a scientist. He particularly coveted being a Fellow of the Royal Society.

WORKS 

Lionised in America and regarded as a prophet by the young in England, Wells' works were translated into every major language. He wrote around 100 books and is sometimes called The Father of Science Fiction.

The term "Outer space" was popularized in the early 20th century writings of H. G. Wells.

Wells published his first major work, The Time Machine, in 1895, when he was twenty-nine years old.

Originally called "The Chronic Argonauts," The Time Machine is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backwards in time.

The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle.

First edition cover

In 1960, Wells' The Time Machine novella was made into an American science fiction film, during which Rod Taylor ends up in year 802701 and a war between Elois and Morlocks.

The War of the Worlds was an 1898 science fiction book by H. G. Wells about Martians attacking Earth. The book's plot arose from Wells wondering "if Martians did to Britain what the British had done to the [indigenous] Tasmanians?", which most modern scholars characterize as a genocide.

Actor Orson Welles stirred a national panic on October 30, 1938 with his radio drama The War of the Worlds based on Wells' novel. Listeners believed the "simulated" news bulletins in the broadcast were real and that Grovers Mill, New Jersey, actually was being invaded by men from Mars.Two people had heart attacks and many others were treated for shock.

A re-creation of the famous War of the Worlds broadcast performed in Ecuador in 1949 caused such a panic, that police and fire brigades rushed out of town to fight the supposed alien. After the people found out it was fake, they burned down the radio station, killing six people.

Robert H. Goddard was inspired to invent the rocket technology by The War of the Worlds.

Tomohiro Nishikado, who was in charge of the Taito Corporation game making department, drew inspiration for the aliens for his Space Invaders electronic shooter game from The War of the Worlds.

In his 1902 novel First Men on the Moon Wells correctly speculated that a man could move rapidly across the Moon with little hops and jumps.

The H. G. Wells crater, located on the far side of the Moon, was named after Wells in 1970.

H.G. Wells crater. By James Stuby based on NASA image

Wells' first non-fiction bestseller was Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought. When originally serialised in 1901 in a magazine it was subtitled "An Experiment in Prophecy", and is considered his most explicitly futuristic work.

Wells' experiences as a draper's apprentice at Hyde's, where he worked a thirteen-hour day and slept in a dormitory with other apprentices, inspired his 1905 novel Kipps: The Story Of A Simple Soul. The book portrays the life of a draper's apprentice as well as providing a critique of society's distribution of wealth.

In 1941 a movie adaption was made of Kipps, starring Michael Redgrave as a shopkeeper who inherits money and gate crushes society.

The  Half a Sixpence 1967 musical film was based on Kipps. The title song was sung by leading man Tommy Steele, who was once mooted as Britain's answer to Elvis Presley.

Amber Reeves, one of Wells' mistresses, was his model for his 1909 novel Ann Veronica. The book caused an uproar when it was published due to the frankness with which it treated sexual relationships.

In The World Set Free in 1914, Wells wrote of an atomic weapon called an "atomic bomb." He was prophetically accurate about the effects of radioactive contamination and the bringing of radioactivity to practical use.

Wells coined the phrase for World War One, "The war that will end wars," in an article published in The Daily News on August 14, 1914 just days after the outbreak of World War I. Wells used the phrase to express his hope that the war would be so destructive that it would finally put an end to all future wars.

Wells's hope was not realized. World War I was followed by World War II, and there have been many other wars since then. However, Wells's phrase has become a rallying cry for those who believe that war can be abolished, and it continues to inspire people around the world to work for peace.

Wells' 1920 The Outline of History, a populist history, sold two million copies making him more money than any other of his books.

His 1933 The Shape of Things To Come was a work of scientific and political speculation in which Wells speculated on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. Some of his short-term predictions would come true, notably the aerial bombing of whole cities and the eventual development of weapons of mass destruction.

BELIEFS 

Raised by his devout Protestant mother to be an evangelical Christian, when Wells studied science at school and college he started to question his faith. He was particularly influenced by the lectures given at the Normal School of Science by T.H Huxley, a proponent of evolution.

Gripped by Huxley, Wells became a rationalist and evolutionist who believed in science to transform humanity. His rejection of religion for science made him pessimistic about the future.

Wells was part of the Debating Society at the Normal School of Science, which marked the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. At first approaching the subject through studying The Republic by Plato, he soon turned to his contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed Fabian Society.

He was also among the founders of The Science School Journal, a school magazine which allowed Wells to express his views on literature and society.

The message of Wells' novels was that in the future society would advance to the fundamental principle that no member is more or less important than anyone else.

H. G. Wells in 1943

H.G. Wells was an enemy of Christianity, which he regarded as irrational. His populist The Outline of History, was a comprehensive assault on religion.

Wells in particular disliked Catholicism, as he believed overpopulation is "The greatest evil" facing the world and birth control opposed by Catholics is the answer. He loathed Catholics and believed Catholicism was a 'mental cancer'.

He disliked monarchists. Wells said of Queen Victoria "A great paperweight that for half a century sat upon people's minds."

Wells wrote some senseless things about the working classes and the poor, including advocating sterilising for them. He wrote in Anticipations: "These swarms of black and brown and dingy white and yellow people... I take it they will have to go."

Six years later, Wells' A Modern Utopia (1907) was almost Arian in its preference for the procreation of superior types of humanity to unfit ones such as Jews and dark-skinned people.

Wells once said: "There is no more evil thing in this world than race prejudice. It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world." Despite this he was a vehement anti-semitist who believed in an all-powerful police state. His lower middle class heroes like Mr Kipps were the sort he would have destroyed with his Ayrianish views.

Wells believed in a class structure and his pamphlets converted a lot of people to Socialism.

In 1921 and 22 Wells stood as Labour candidate for Parliament. Despite his constituency largely comprising the University of London, he lost.

A long term activist of the Socialist Fabian Society, sometimes Wells was too revolutionary even for the Fabians. He said to Josef Stalin in a 1934 interview: "It seems to me that I am more to the left than you, Mr Stalin".

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Wells was a small plump man with piercing blue eyes and a drooping moustache.

H. G. Wells in 1907 at the door of his house at Sandgate

Never fully sure of himself, Wells was impatient and unpredictable, prickly and intolerant but loyal to his friends.

He had a high pitched, squeaky voice, which never lost its cockney impudence.

Wells possessed a huge range of energy and had a mischievous, impish humour.

MARRIAGE

In 1887, Wells', Aunt Mary, a cousin of his father, invited him to stay with her for a while. During his stay with his aunt, he grew interested in her daughter, Isabel Mary Wells.

In 1891 Wells married his pretty, sweet natured, bovine, cousin Isabel.

Wells started an affair with Amy Catherine Robbins who was six years younger than him. She was a pupil at the university correspondence college in London where he taught. When Amy spent a weekend with Wells, Isabel realised the situation and gave her husband an ultimatum and within days he'd left his wife. After two years of marriage they were divorced.

Wells married Amy at St Pancras register office on October 27, 1895.

He made Amy change her name preferring Jane. She bore him two sons and was with him until her death in 1927.

Wells believed in free love and had affairs with a significant number of women.  In December 1909, he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writer Amber Reeve.

One of his mistresses was the writer Rebecca West (1892-1983). He called her "panther" and she called him "Jaguar". He had a son, Anthony by her, who became a critically lauded author.

Rebecca West

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS 

Wells' friend J.M. Barrie founded an amateur cricket team called the Allahakbarries in 1890. Wells played for the Allahakbarries along with Arthur Conan Doyle, Jerome K. Jerome, G.K. Chesterton and A.A. Milne.

Seeking a more structured way to play with toy soldiers, H.G. Wells wrote in 1913 Little Wars, which is recognized today as the first recreational wargame. He sometimes played it all day with friends.  Wells is regarded by gamers and hobbyists as "the Father of Miniature Wargaming."

H G Wells had a cat called Mr Peter Wells.

HOMES 

Wells was brought up in the kitchen and backstairs of the Uppark country house near Midhurst where his mother was the housekeeper.

Uppark. By EccentricRichard 

Whilst apprenticed to a chemist Wells lodged at Ye Old Tea Shoppe, Midhurst.

After marrying Isabel Wells moved to Sevenoaks to live with her. It was at 23 Eardley Road there that he wrote The Time Machine.

Wells went to live in Folkestone, Kent for his flagging health in 1898. He had a home built for him there, Spade House on Radnor Cliff Crescent. Some of his best works including Kipps and The History of Mr Polly were written at Spade House.

He lived in London for much of his life. Wells' homes there included a seven-bedroom house at Church Street, Hampstead. Between 1930-37 he lived in a flat at 97 Chiltern Court, Marylebone Road, London. His last home was a terraced house on Hanover Terrace, which overlooked Regents Park.

DEATH AND LEGACY 

A diabetic, Wells co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (known today as Diabetes UK) in 1934.

Wells died of diabetes aged 79 on August 13, 1946 at home at 13 Hanover Terrace. He was working on the scenario of a film The Way The World Is Going at the time. His last words were "Go away, I'm all right".

His ashes were scattered in Poole harbour, Dorset.

Star Wars

DEVELOPMENT 

The original Star Wars movie was a science fantasy film written and directed by American filmmaker George Lucas. He began writing a 13-page film treatment that later formed the basis of Star Wars on April 17, 1973.

Wikipedia

Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) auditioned for the role of Han Solo and after he got back from the audition, he pushed his close friend Mark Hamill, who was sleeping on Englund's couch at the time, to audition for Luke Skywalker.

In 1977, 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the "Star Wars" franchise that they gave away all of the movie licensing and merchandising rights to George Lucas in exchange for his $500,000 directorial fee.

THE MOVIES  

The Star Wars movies are said to have been inspired by Akira Kurosawa's films Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress.

The franchise began with the release on May 25, 1977 of the film Star Wars (later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981), which became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon.

Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford)

If it weren't for the unexpected blockbuster status of Star Wars, production company 20th Century Fox likely would have gone bankrupt. Instead, at peak popularity, the franchise earned them $1.2 million a day.

Marcia Lucas, George Lucas' then wife, was the reason for major changes to the original Star Wars film. Princess Leia's good luck kiss, Obi Wan's death and re-editing the trench run to increase tension were all her ideas. She won the Academy Award for editing the film while George did not for directing.

Star Wars was followed by the successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy.

By the time filming on Return of the Jedi started in 1982, Star Wars was a gigantic pop culture phenomenon. To maintain secrecy, producers claimed to be shooting a horror movie called "Blue Harvest" and even had caps and T-shirts made for the crew.

According to the documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy, Steven Spielberg was Lucas' first pick to direct Return of the Jedi. Spielberg declined because of his Directors Guild of America membership. (Lucas had left the guild over disagreements about "The Empire Strikes Back.") Lucas hired Welsh director Richard Marquand, who was non-union at the time.

Return of the Jedi was once titled "Revenge of the Jedi." George Lucas changed the name because he thought a Jedi wouldn't seek revenge. Posters were distributed bearing the "Revenge" logo but were ultimately pulled.

Return of the Jedi was the first film to use the THX sound-system standard in theaters.

A prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005 and a sequel trilogy began in 2015 with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

On May 19, 1999 when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released into theaters, an estimated 2.2 million full time employees missed work in America to watch the movie. it cost the US an estimated $293 million dollars from lose of productivity.

THE CHARACTERS 

The first character to speak in 1977's Star Wars is C3PO.

James Earl Jones recorded all of his Darth Vader lines for Star Wars in 2.5 hours. He was paid $7,500

The name of R2-D2 was taken from the parlance of sound men in the film industry. It means the second reel of the second dialogue track.

The name Jedi is said to have come from “Jidai Geki” (“period dramas”) which was the name given in Japan to films about samurai.

The little green Jedi knight Yoda's name comes from the Sanskrit word 'yoddha' meaning warrior.

Yoda's face (and particularly his eyes) are said to have been modelled after the appearance of Albert Einstein.

In The Phantom Menace Yoda has three toes. But in three later films he has four.

In early drafts of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda was actually named "Buffy."

Yoda, as depicted in The Empire Strikes Back. (WP:NFCC#4)

Darth Vader’s name was partially inspired by one of George Lucas’ high school classmates, Gary Vader.

Darth Vader's breathing was recorded by putting a microphone inside a regulator on a scuba tank.

Jabba's slithery noises when he moves were made by sound designer Ben Burtt running his hands through a cheese casserole.

The growls and snarls of the rancor creature in Return of the Jedi were actually made by a dachshund.

Bodyguards were hired to protect the Chewbacca actor from Bigfoot hunters while shooting in the Pacific Northwest.

Carrie Fisher complained her Princess Leia outfits in the first two Star Wars films didn't show "she was a woman." That led to the famous gold bikini Leia wears as Jabba's prisoner in Return of the Jedi.

Carrie Fisher had never met James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader) had never personally met until in 2014 when they both appeared in an episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Anthony Daniels (as C-3PO, a humanoid protocol droid in the service of General Leia Organa) is the only actor to have appeared in all the episodic films in the Star Wars series.

FUN STAR WARS FACTS 

During the scene in which Luke Skywalker gets out of his X-wing fighter after blowing up the Death Star, he accidentally calls Princess Leia 'Carrie' (her real first name).

Alec Guinness agreed to play Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars only after his initial salary was doubled, and that he would receive 2.25% of all gross royalties paid to George Lucas, and never have to make a publicity appearance. 

Star Wars was released in the Navajo Language, the first motion picture to be translated into a Native American language.

Having "a bad feeling about this" is a popular phrase that's popped up in all the Star Wars films.

George Lucas was dissatisfied with the inconsistent and poor sound quality in movie theaters at the time. He co-founded THX (Tomlinson Holman eXperiment), a high-fidelity audio/video reproduction standard for movie theaters, in order to ensure that the audio in Return of the Jedi would be heard as it was intended. THX helped to set a new standard for movie theater sound quality and continues to be used in theaters today.

Ackbar's famous line in Return of the Jedi "It's a trap!" was originally "It's a trick!" The line was changed in post-production after a negative test-screening.

The word Ewok is never said in Return Of The Jedi.

The design of the Millennium Falcon spacecraft was based on a hamburger.

George Lucas approved of Mel Brooks’ 1987 Star Wars parody Spaceballs and signed off on a fair use agreement. The only condition was that no Spaceballs merchandise would be made to compete with Star Wars merchandise. This is why there’s never been any Spaceballs figures, cereal, or flamethrower.

George Lucas made the working title of Star Wars Episode II "Jar Jar's Great Adventure" to troll the cast and crew, even labeling the script as such in the original drafts.

Multiple Star Wars lead actors have struggled with a habit of making their own sound effects for fight scenes. When, for instance, Ewan McGregor was cast as Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace, he found himself unable to stop mimicking the sounds of his lightsaber to the point where multiple takes needed to be re-shot. 

The world's first organised Star Wars Day was celebrated at a cinema in Toronto, Canada on May 4, 2011. The reason for choosing that particular date was the pun: "May the 4th be with you", in reference to the popular phrase in Star Wars: "May the Force be with you." May 4th has since been embraced by Lucasfilm as an annual celebration of Star Wars.

The Star Wars theme was written purposely on the same key as the 20th Century Fox fanfare (that used to appear before the movie started) so that there will be a continuous feeling and a smooth entry to the film for the viewers.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton, once wrote an entire song in the Huttese language from Star Wars. It was the song that played in Maz's Kantina in The Force Awakens.

In 2013, Star Wars was dubbed in Navajo, making it the first major film to be dubbed in a Native American language.

Sources: IMDb, My San Antonio, Daily Express

Star Trek

DEVELOPMENT 

Star Trek was created as a TV series in 1966 by Gene Roddenberry. He sold it as a western, but in space, and modeled it on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, with each episode combining an adventure with a morality tale.

Title used for the first season Wikipedia

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first wrote for the series Highway Patrol under the pseudonym "Robert Wesley" as he was still in the LAPD at the time.

The original name for the starship in Star Trek was "Yorktown," not "Enterprise".

THE SHOWS 

The first episode of Star Trek aired on September 8, 1966, was titled "The Man Trap." In the episode, the crew visit an outpost to conduct medical exams on the residents, only to be attacked by a shapeshifting alien creature seeking to extract salt from their bodies.

Many of the pipes seen in the starship on the original Star Trek series had the label "G.N.D.N." which stood for "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothin…"

The Star Trek Transporter (teleportation) was created due to save money and episode length on showing the ship land on the planet as the original plan.

In the first Star Trek series, stardates were bogus—the writers were told to pick any combination of four numbers plus a percentage point.

Because of TV censorship, actress Mariette Hartley was not allowed to show her belly button on Star Trek [episode #78 "All Our Yesterdays" in 1969] but later Gene Roddenberry got even when he gave Hartley "two" belly buttons in the 1973 sci-fi movie Genesis II.

The original Star Trek ran for only three series from 1966-69 before it was cancelled. In only became cult viewing when it was repeated after the 1969 moon landing.

After the first series was cancelled William Shantner, who played Captain James Kirk, was out of work and had to live in a camper van.

"Spock's Brain" was the first episode of the third season.

Reruns and syndication from 1969 were a huge success creating a cult following which led to Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.

The canonical reason for most of the alien races to be humanoid in Star Trek is an ancient humanoid species seeding the oceans of many worlds with DNA codes 4.5 billion years before the start of the series, directing the evolution of life towards a physical pattern similar to their own.

The Star Trek theme has lyrics. Gene Rodenberry exercised an option to write lyrics for composer Alexander Courage's instrumental theme because he wanted half of the royalties. The lyrics were never used on the TV series.

THE CHARACTERS 

Spock was originally supposed to be a Martian, but Gene Roddenberry changed his home to the fictional Vulcan because he feared humans will already land on Mars during the show‘s runtime and make it look outdated.

Vulcan was a fictional planet that Roddenberry created specifically for Spock. He wanted to create a planet that was similar to Earth in many ways, but also had some key differences. For example, Vulcans are logical and rational, while humans are often emotional and irrational. This contrast between Vulcans and humans was one of the things that made Star Trek so popular.

Initially, NBC asked Gene Roddenberry to get rid of the "guy with the pointy ears" because they were worried about his "satanic" appearance. Luckily, Roddenberry refused to cut Spock from the show.

Spock was originally going to have red skin, but the idea was scrapped because the makeup looked like blackface on a monochrome television.

Spock's famous Vulcan salute, ‘Live long and prosper', was inspired by a priestly blessing Leonard Nimroy saw as a child, when he attended a synagogue service with his father.

Leonard Nimoy released multiple albums, including a two sided record titled Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy. One side featured him singing songs as Spock; the other side featured songs related to his personal interests.

Spock, as played by Leonard Nimoy, as seen in the pilots of Star Trek

Contrary to common belief, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) never uttered "Beam me up, Scotty" in Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry never gave Captain Kirk a birthplace more specific than the state of Iowa. In 1985, when trying to find a theme for its annual festival, the town of Riverside voted to proclaim itself the future birthplace of the Starfleet officer. Roddenberry gave the town his blessing.

Lieutenant Uhura's name means “freedom” in Swahili. When Nichelle Nichols read for the part of a communications officer in Star Trek, she had a copy of Robert Ruark's Uhuru with her. When Gene Roddenberry heard what the word meant, he changed the character's name to Uhura.

James "Scotty" Doohan was badly wounded during World War II losing fingers on one hand. To hide this Star Trek used a hand double but his injury can be seen when he carries Tribbles in the famous episode.

Because the character of Montgomery Scott in Star Trek inspired so many students to pursue careers in engineering, the Milwaukee School of Engineering presented James Doohan with an honorary degree in engineering.

Sir Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard) is an anagram of “I scrap Star Trek wit”.

Michael Dorn (Worf) has appeared more times as a regular cast member than any other Star Trek actor in the franchise's history, spanning 5 films and 272 television episodes.

The Klingons were created by screenwriter Gene L. Coon, and first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek episode "Errand of Mercy". They were named after Lieutenant Wilbur Clingan, who served with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in the Los Angeles Police Department.

Majel Barrett was the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the Star Trek. series. Barrett died on December 18, 2008, aged 76, as a result of leukemia. She recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds before her passing which allowed her voice to be used as the computer for future generations.

In 1993, Stephen Hawking became the only person to portray himself on Star Trek when he appeared in "Descent," the 26th episode of the sixth season of The Next Generation, He features in a scene playing poker with Newton, Einstein and Data.

THE MOVIES 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the first movie set in the Star Trek universe. It was made in 1979 by Paramount Pictures.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture's final production cost was approximately $46 million. It earned $139 million at the worldwide box office, falling short of studio expectations, but enough for Paramount to propose a less expensive sequel.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is not a quote from some ancient philosopher or legal code. It is a quote from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Kim Cattrall, while filming Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country, posed for photos on the Enterprise bridge wearing nothing but Vulcan ears. Fearing harm to the franchise, Leonard Nimoy had the pictures destroyed.

FUN STAR TREK FACTS 

The majority of Star Trek takes place within the Milky Way galaxy, however there are some episodes and movies that feature characters traveling to other galaxies.

Enthusiastic Star Trek fans are usually called Trekkies. The word was first used by science fiction editor Arthur W. Saha when he saw people wearing fake Vulcan ears at a convention in 1967.

By pop culture geek - Flickr: Star Trek Federation Officers,

English comic actor and writer Stephen Fry's dissertation in his final year at Cambridge University was titled "Apollonian And Dionysian Themes In The Plots Of Star Trek." He once said: “Most of human history and art can be expressed in Star Trek plots.”

There is no word for “hello” in Klingon. The nearest is nuqneH, meaning “What do you want?”

The UK group T'Pau, best known for their 1987 hit "Heart and Soul", was named after a Vulcan high priestess on Star Trek. Their frontwoman Carol Decker was watching an episode when the character appeared, and when she suggested the name, the band went for it.

The phrase "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it" did not originate in Star Trek, but instead in the parody song "Star Trekkin'",

The first man to have his ashes taken into space was Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1992. Those ashes were brought back to earth but 7gm of them were scattered in space five years later.

Source Daily Express

Science fiction

The Hellenized Syrian satirist Lucian wrote the novel A True Story, sometimes regarded as the first work of science fiction, in the second century AD. It is the earliest known work of fiction to feature outer space travel, flying to the Moon, alien lifeforms and interplanetary warfare.

Somnium (Latin for "The Dream") is a novel written in 1608, in Latin, by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler. It was first published in 1634. The work is a detailed imaginative description of how the Earth might look when viewed from the Moon, and is considered to be the first work of science fiction since Roman times.

Reproduction of 1634 title page

New Atlantis is an incomplete Utopian novel by English writer and statesman Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1627. The work is a fable about a city on an imaginary Pacific island, Bensalem, ran by scholars. Its advanced population had aircraft, hearing aids, refrigerators and submarines. One of the first ever science fiction novels, it was a best seller for more than a decade after its publication.

The Man in the Moone is a book by the English Church of England bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633). Initially considered to be one of his early works, it is now thought to date from the late 1620s. The novel was first published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales.
In The Man in the Moone, a Spaniard ends up on the moon after fleeing Spain and harnessing some wild swans who fly him up to it. He then meets the "Lunars"-a people who inhabit the moon. Some critics consider The Man in the Moone to be one of the first works of science fiction.

The early French science-fiction novel Memoirs of the Year 2500 by Louis-Sébastien Mercier was one of the most popular titles of the 18th century. The first work of utopian fiction set in the future rather than at a distant place in the present , the novel describes the adventures of an unnamed man who falls asleep and wakes up in a Paris several centuries later. Written only 18 years before the French Revolution of 1789, the book describes a future pacifist France with no religion and no military.

The earliest use of the term Science Fiction, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1851 when it was applied to poetry or fiction interweaving a story with scientific fact. The earliest use of “science fiction” for futuristic writing was in 1927 and had come into general use by the end of the decade.

The first science fiction film, titled A Trip to the Moon and based on From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, was released in France  on September 1, 1902.

Luxembourgish-American writer, editor, and magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967) provided a forum for the modern genre of science fiction in 1926 by founding the first magazine dedicated to it, Amazing Stories.

February 1928 cover of Amazing Stories

Although Greenback was the first in modern times to use the term "science fiction", he preferred to call it “scientifiction.”

The annual awards at the World Science Fiction Convention are called the “Hugos” after Hugo Gernsback,

The abbreviation “sci-fi” was introduced in 1954, by analogy with “hi-fi."

The first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, was published  in May 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago, Illinois.

The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century radio show, notable as the first science-fiction program on radio, first hit the airwaves as a 15-minute broadcast on CBS Radio on November 7, 1932. The show related the story of our hero Buck finding himself in the 25th century.

R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a play that was first performed in Czechoslovakia in 1920 and is widely credited with popularizing the term "robot." The play is set in a future world where robots are created to perform manual labor, and it explores the themes of technological progress, the relationship between humans and machines, and the consequences of creating artificial life. 

The BBC aired an adaptation of Karel Čapek's play R.U.R on February 11, 1938. It was the first science fiction television program ever broadcast. The 1938 adaptation by the BBC marked a significant moment in the history of science fiction, as it brought these themes to a wider audience and helped to establish the genre as a staple of popular culture.

The first episode of Doctor Who, titled "An Unearthly Child," aired on November 23, 1963. It was the beginning of a long-running and iconic science fiction television series. The episode introduced viewers to the Doctor, played by William Hartnell, and his time-traveling spaceship, the TARDIS, as well as his companions Susan Foreman, Barbara Wright, and Ian Chesterton. 

The first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast eighty seconds later than the scheduled program time, because of the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous day.

Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek in the mid-1960s. He sold it as a western, but in space, and modeled it on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, with each episode combining an adventure with a morality tale. The first episode of Star Trek aired on September 8, 1966, and was titled "The Man Trap."

Commander Spock and Captain James T. Kirk pictured here in The Original Series

Enthusiastic Star Trek fans are usually called Trekkies. The word was first used by Arthur W. Saha when he saw people wearing fake Vulcan ears at a convention in 1967.

Dune, by Frank Herbert, the world’s best- selling science fiction novel, was rejected over 20 times before being accepted by a publisher of car manuals.

Science fiction author William Gibson notably coined the term "cyberspace" in his short story "Burning Chrome," which was published on July 7, 1982.  The word was used in reference to the "mass consensual hallucination" in computer networks. Gibson later popularized the concept in his acclaimed 1984 debut novel Neuromancer.

The front cover art for the book Burning Chrome. Wikipedia Commons

The cyberpunk science-fiction genre was named after the 1983 short story Cyberpunk by Bruce Bethke.

L Ron Hubbard the founder of Scientology, was a science fiction author.

In his later years the artist Pablo Picasso liked to read science fiction comics.

National Science Fiction Day is unofficially celebrated by many science fiction fans in the United States on January 2, to correspond with renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov's birthday. While not an official holiday recognized by the government, it's widely acknowledged by science fiction fans and organizations like the Hallmark Channel and Scholastic Corporation.

Gattaca (1997) was voted the most plausible science fiction film of all time by the scientists at NASA.

Sources Daily Express, Daily Mail

Robot

HISTORY

The robot revolution has been a long time coming. Many countries' ancient myths included mechanical beings and automatons, and as long ago as the fourth century BC, Greek mathematician Archytas drew up a concept of a mechanical bird powered by steam.

In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant bronze robot, with an average speed of 155 miles/hour. It
circled Crete's shores three times daily, protecting the island by throwing huge boulders at pirates.

Leonardo da Vinci designed a man-shaped machine that looked like a knight in around 1495. It was intended to be controlled with ropes and wheels. When his plans were found almost 500 years later and built according to Leonardo's specifications, the design worked perfectly.

Model of Leonardo's robot with inner workings. 

King Philip II of Spain once commissioned a mechanical monk to be made as a thanksgiving offering to God for saving his son. Spanish clockmaker Juanelo Turriano was asked to create the penitent automaton in 1562 after the the 17-year-old crown prince of Spain Don Carlos had recovered from a deathly head wound. One of the first robots made by humans, it still works to this day.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes once constructed a robot in the form of a girl . On one occasion, he transported the automaton by sea. The ship captain spotting it packed in the chest was so horrified at its realistic form that thinking it could only be the devil in disguise, he threw the chest and its contents into the sea.

Early in Edgar Allen Poe's writing career, he published an essay exposing a fake chess-playing automaton. Known initially as the Automaton Chess Player and later as the Mechanical Turk, the machine consisted of a mechanical man dressed in robes and a turban who sat at a wooden cabinet that was overlaid with a chessboard. The 1836 essay employs a method of deduction called 'ratiocination' which is used by C. Auguste Dupin, Poe's fictional detective.

The term robot dates to January 25, 1921, the date when Czech playwright Karel Capek's science fiction play R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots) premiered.  Čapek used 'roboti' a word from Czech that is connected with 'work' to describe artificial people made in a factory from synthetic organic matters. These robots rebel leading to the collapse of society. and the extinction of the human race.

A scene from R.U.R., showing three robots.

Since the advent of the computer, robots have proliferated. The most common types are mechanical 'arms.' Fixed to the floor of a workbench, they perform usually routine, repetitive functions such as paint spraying or assembling parts in factories.

Articulated welding robots used in a factory, a type of industrial robot.

Other robots include computer controlled vehicles for carrying materials, and a miscellany of devices from cruise missiles, deep sea and space exploration craft to robotic toys.  Some robots do surgery in places inside the body where a human hand is too big.

FIRSTS 

The opening passage in Isaac Asimov's 1941 short story Liar! includes the earliest recorded use of the word 'robotics.'

The first commercial, digital and programmable robot was built by American inventor George Devol and named the Unimate. It was not made to look like a human, but was instead designed for use, having just one arm and one hand. The patent was filed on December 10, 1954.

The Unimate was sold to General Motors in 1961 where it was used to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting machines at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in the West Trenton section of Ewing Township, New Jersey.

On November 17, 1970, the Lunokhod 1 moonrover was released by the Soviet Union's orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft. It succeeded in landing on the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains), becoming the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world.

Soviet Lunokhod moonrover

A Ford assembly line worker called Robert Williams was the first human in history to be killed by a robot. He was hit by a robotic arm in 1979.

In 2004 the first ever robot conductor conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. On October 25, 2017 Sophia was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, becoming the first robot ever to have a nationality.

Picture below shows Sophia speaking at the AI for GOOD Global Summit, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva in June 2017.

Sophia by International Telecommunication Union 

FUN ROBOT FACTS

Roughly half of all the robots in the world are in Asia, 32% in Europe, 16% in North America and 1% each in Australasia and Africa.

30% of all the robots in the world are in Japan, more than any country in the world. Japan is considered to be the leader in the world robotics industry.

ASIMO , a bipedal humanoid robot, created by Honda in 2000.

Harvard researchers unveiled in 2013 the smallest flying robot ever created, with a wingspan of 3 centimeters (1.2 in).

There are many books, movies, and video games with robots in them. Isaac Asimov's novel I, Robot is perhaps the most famous.

Isaac Asimov's 1942 short story Runaround, in which he set out the three Laws of Robotics, is set in 2015. The laws are:

1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Nikola Tesla named the industrial robots that construct the Model S all-electric luxury hatchack after the X-men characters: Wolverine, Xavier, Beast, Iceman, and Cyclops.

Robots took the jobs of an estimated 670,000 US workers between 1990 and 2007.

The Longquan temple on the outskirts of Beijing has a robotic monk named Xian’er designed to teach people about Buddhism.

In Middle East countries there is a sport called Robot Camel Racing where robots are placed on top of the camels. They are operated by a joystick, using the right hand to crack whips and the left to pull on the reins.

Mars is the only planet in the known Universe that's entirely inhabited by robots.

Source Hutchinson Encyclopedia