Jules Verne, the author sometimes referred to as the father of science fiction, was born on February 8, 1828 in Nantes, France. Although his works were written before the invention of the airplane, they predicted not only planes, but television, guided missiles and space satellites.
Verne's novels brimmed with adventure and memorable characters. There was mad Captain Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tooling around the ocean in his submarine, the Nautilus. And how about the dashing Phileas Fogg, travelling Around the World in Eighty Days? Several of Verne's works have been turned into movies, and, in fact the new film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, owes a debt to not one, but two, of his novels; Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Mysterious Island.
