Rube Goldberg
American cartoonist (1883-1970)
Rube Goldberg (or Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg) was born on July 4th, 1883. His father wanted him to become an engineer, but he resigned his position with the Water and Sewers foundation to become a cartoonist with the San Francisco Chronicle. His first public hit was a comic strip called Foolish Questions. This was just one of the 50,000 cartoons he created in his lifetime. People started using terms such as Goldbergian and holding a Rube Goldberg machine contest, where people created complex machines based on Goldbergs wacky inventions. Overall, Goldberg was a great cartoonist and had a lasting cultural legacy, and is still mentioned in pop culture nowadays.