International Literacy Day and the launch of Star Trek

James Tiberius Kirk started
boldly going on this day in 1966

International Literacy Day is an annual United Nations observance; this year, the theme is "literacy and peace." The U.N. uses this occasion to promote literacy as "a human right and the foundation of all learning."

Hard to argue with that one.

Today also marks the 46th anniversary of the start of the five year mission of the Star Ship Enterprise's: The original Star Trek series premiered on NBC on this date in 1966.

The show was a flop in the ratings -- but it went into warp drive in reruns and syndication and spawned whole new generations of Star Trek afficiondaos.

And -- here's the tie-in to Literacy Day -- Star Trek sold a heck of a lot of books, too (Wikipedia list, Memory Alpha list).

And it was on September 8, 1974 that President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Milhous Nixon.