Arthur C Clarke, Born 1917
WRITER & COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE INVENTOR
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS was an English science fiction writer, science writer, explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the most influential films of all time. He wrote many books and many essays for popular magazines. In 1961, he received the Kalinga Prize, a UNESCO award for popularising science. Clarke's science and science-fiction writings made him one of the towering figures of the genre. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction. Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1945, he was the first to propose a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–1947 and again in 1951–1953. Clarke emigrated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956, to pursue his interest in scuba diving. He died there, at the age of 90, in 2008.