The Islamic Golden Age is a historical period lasting from c. 750 CE to c. 1257 CE, during which philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world are credited with a period of contribution to scientific knowledge, cultural arts, civilisation and architecture, both by developing earlier traditions and by a period of relatively rapid and marked innovation. A substantial degree of historic Islamic intellectual innovation occurred in the so-called Golden age.

Bernard Lewis wrote that Islamic governments inherited:

the knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle East, of Greece and of Persia. They added new and important innovations from outside, such as the manufacture of paper from China and decimal positional numbering from India.

Much of this learning and development can be linked to geography. Even prior to Islam's presence, the city of Mecca served as a center of trade in Arabia and Muhammad was a merchant. The tradition of the pilgrimage to Mecca became a center for exchanging ideas and goods. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous. As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to their Christian, Indian and Chinese peers who built societies from an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their faith to China (resulting in a significant population of Chinese Muslims with an estimated 37 million followers, mainly ethnic Turkic Uyghur whose territory was annexed to China), India, southeast Asia, and the kingdoms of western Africa and returned with new inventions.

A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour when great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure (see Golden Age).

A society's Golden Age marks that period in its history having a heightened output of art, science, literature, and philosophy.

A golden age is often ascribed to the years immediately following some technological innovation. It is during this time that writers and artists ply their skills to this new medium. Therefore, there are Golden Ages of both radio and television. During this nascent phase the technology allows new ideas to be expressed, as new art forms flower quickly into new areas:

At least one technology had its "Golden Age" in its latter years:

Technology and creativity spawn new genres in literature and theatre. The onset of a new genre will be its Golden Age:

The Golden Age of Freethought is regarded the era from about the 1870s through the beginning of World War I in which freethought flourished in the United States. Social trends clashed with religious orthodoxy and caused people to question their traditional ideas about the world.

Neil deGrasse Tyson ( /ˈniːəl dəˈɡræs ˈtaɪsən/ born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 he has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS, and has been a frequent guest on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Jeopardy!. It was announced on August 5, 2011, that Tyson will be hosting a new sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage television series.

Tyson was born as the second of three children in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, but was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Sunchita Feliciano Tyson, was a gerontologist and his father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for the New York City mayor, John Lindsay, and was the first Director of HARYOU. Tyson attended the Bronx High School of Science (1972–1976, astrophysics emphasis) where he was captain of the wrestling team and was editor-in-chief of the school's Physical Science Journal. Tyson had an abiding interest in astronomy from the age of eleven, following his visit to the Hayden Planetarium at age nine. Tyson recalls that "so strong was that imprint [of the night sky] that I'm certain that I had no choice in the matter, that in fact, the universe called me." He obsessively studied astronomy in his teens, and eventually even gained some fame in the astronomy community by giving lectures on the subject at the age of fifteen.