On March 17, 1941, John W. Campbell, Jr., then editor of "Astounding Science Fiction" met with a young Isaac Asimov, one of his stable of young writers. Asimov, who had just turned 21, had an idea for a story. Campbell, being the boss, had a better one. Campbell asked (so the story goes), "What do you think would happen if men were to see the stars for the first time in a thousand years?" Asimov, then quite naive on the ways of man, said, "I don't know." Campbell the said, "I think they would go mad." The two men talked a bit about the how & why of a world without stars, then Campbell sent the young, and only recently published, author out off his office with the orders, "Go home and write the story." And the rest, as they say, is history.