Today is the birthday of the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil: Guy Laliberté

 Today is the birthday of the Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil: Guy Laliberté, born in Quebec City (1959). Time described him as "puckish," and Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.5 billion. His résumé lists skills like accordion playing, stilt walking, and fire eating. He formed an acrobatic troupe out of a band of street buskers in 1984, with the support of a grant from the provincial government of Quebec; it was originally set up as a one-year project but the government asked him to take it on tour. There are now 22 different Cirque du Soleil shows, employing 5,000 people and being performed all over the world; there are six of them currently running in Las Vegas alone. The latest Cirque productions include Iris, an alternate history of the movies, which is the first permanent show in Los Angeles; Zarkana, about a magician who has lost his magic; and Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, which begins its tour in Montreal this fall.

He became the seventh space tourist — and the first space clown — in 2009, when he blasted off to deliver red noses to the International Space Station. He spent 12 days in space and paid $35 million for the opportunity. He did it to promote his ONE DROP Foundation and raise awareness of the world's shortage of clean water. Earlier this year, he published Gaia (2011), a book of photographs that he took from space.

He said: "I am blessed for what I have, but I believed in it from the beginning. Today, the dream is the same: I still want to travel, I still want to entertain, and I most certainly still want to have fun."