James Burke (born 22 December 1936) is a British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer, who is known, among other things, for his documentary television series Connections (1978), and for its more philosophically oriented companion series, The Day the Universe Changed (1985), which is about the history of science and technology. The Washington Post called him "one of the most intriguing minds in the Western world". 　　James Burke was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, and was educated at Maidstone Grammar School, and at Jesus College, Oxford, where he earned an M.A. degree in Middle English. Upon graduation he moved to Italy, where at the British School in Bologna he was lecturer in English and director of studies, 1961–63. He also lectured at the University of Urbino. Thereafter he was head of school at the English School in Rome, 1963–65. He was also involved in the creation of an English–Italian dictionary, and the publication of an art encyclopedia. 　　Burke explained how he got into television to the US magazine People in 1979: "Television beckoned by chance one day on a Rome bus. Spotting an ad for a reporter for the local bureau of Britain's Granada TV, he says, 'I decided if the bus stopped at the next corner I would get off and apply for the job.' It did, he did, and the next thing he knew 'we went straight off to Sicily to do a series on the Mafia.'" 　　In 1966 he moved to London and joined the Science and Features Department of the BBC, for which he was host or co-host of several programmes. He also worked as an instructor in English as a Foreign Language at the Regency Language School in Ramsgate. 　　Connections: Narrator James Burke explains the industrial Haber-Bosch Process for the production of ammonia, to make artificial fertilisers. 　　Burke established his reputation as a reporter on the BBC science series Tomorrow's World. He was BBC television's science anchorman and chief reporter for the Project Apollo missions, as the main presenter of the BBC's coverage of the first moon landing in 1969. 　　In collaboration with Mick Jackson, he produced the ten-part documentary series Connections (1978), which was first broadcast on the BBC, and subsequently on PBS in the United States. Connections traced the historical relationships between invention and discovery: each episode chronicled a particular path of technological development. Connections was the most-watched PBS television series up to that time. It was followed by the twenty-part Connections2 (1994) and the ten-part Connections3 (1997). Connections: An Alternative View of Change was broadcast in more than fifty countries and the companion book Connections: An Alternative History of Technology (1978) sold well. 　　In 1985 Burke, with Richard Reisz and John Lynch, produced the ten-part series The Day the Universe Changed (revised 1995), which concentrated on the philosophical aspects of scientific change in Western culture. 　　Burke has also been a regular writer for Scientific American and Time, and a consultant to the SETI project. 　　Burke has received the gold and the silver medals of the Royal Television Society. In 1998 he was made an honorary fellow of the Society for Technical Communication. 　　Burke has also contributed to podcasts, such as in 2008, when he appeared on Hardcore History with Dan Carlin,and newspaper articles including two series for the Mogollon Connection by Jesse Horn, one focusing on the nature of morality,the other on the future of our youth.