September 8: Birth of Star Trek and the Space Cowboy Genre

On September 8 in 1966 the very first episode of Star Trek was aired on NBC in the US (the first international airing of the show actually took place two days earlier on Canada's CTV network) beginning with the now famous phrase "Space; the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise."
    The series, pitched to network executives as a Western in Space by creator Gene Roddenberry, followed the Starship Enterprise (an exploration spaceship  in the "United Federation of Planets" fleet) through the Milky Way with Captain James Tiberius Kirk at the helm and first officer Spock at his side.
    The series was canceled after 3 seasons (79 episodes) despite campaigns by fans to save the show, but found new life in syndication in the 1970s and eventually becoming a franchise with five additional television series and thirteen feature films by it's 50th anniversary in 2016 and is now considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time.