Daniel Irvin Rather Jr born October 31 1931 is an American journalist commentator and former national evening news anchor He began his career in Texas becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in September 1961 Rather spontaneously created the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over a radar image of Hurricane Carla In his first national broadcast he helped initiate the successful evacuation of 350000 people He reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age such as the fall of the Berlin Wall the Gulf War 911 the Iraq War and the war on terror