Portrait of Morley Safer

Birthday profile

Morley Safer

Morley Safer, Canadian-American journalist and author (died 2016)

Born
November 8, 1931
Died
May 19, 2016
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1931

About Morley Safer

Morley Safer (November 8, 1931 – May 19, 2016) was a Canadian-American broadcast journalist, reporter, and correspondent for CBS News. He was best known for his long tenure on the news magazine 60 Minutes, whose cast he joined in 1970 after its second year on television, and where he became its longest-serving reporter. During his 60-year career as a broadcast journalist, Safer received numerous awards, including 12 Emmys. In 2009, he donated his personal papers to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Jeff Fager, executive producer of 60 Minutes, said "Morley has had a brilliant career as a reporter and as one of the most significant figures in CBS News history, on our broadcast and in many of our lives. Morley's curiosity, his sense of adventure and his superb writing, all made for exceptional work done by a remarkable man." Safer died a week after announcing his retirement from 60 Minutes. With the help of some clandestine skills, Safer and his news team became the first United States–based journalists to report from inside Communist China, broadcast in 1967 as a Special CBS News Report, "Morley Safer's Red China Diary".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Morley Safer was born

Morley Safer was born in 1931. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1931

  • #1 song"Stardust" – Artie Shaw
  • Top movieFrankenstein
  • Best-selling bookThe Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentKnute Rockne dies in plane crash
  • Top headlineAl Capone convicted of tax evasion
  • Technology milestoneEmpire State Building completed
  • Defining fadJigsaw puzzles
  • Notable inventionElectric razor
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population124.0M

1931 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Morley Safer's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19312026
Gas$0.17$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,000$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population124.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.