Motto for Today: ‘Whenever you want to change something, someone will oppose you.’

This is Your Day-TODAY: Take a Determined Step Forward and Make History!   

On this day, August 27….

413 – A lunar eclipse caused panic among the sailors of the Athens fleet and thus affected the outcome of a battle in the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians were ready to move their forces from Syracuse when the Moon was eclipsed. The soldiers and sailors were frightened by this celestial omen and were reluctant to leave. Their commander, Nicias, consulted the soothsayers and postponed the departure for 27 days. This delay gave an advantage to their enemies, the Syracusans, who then defeated the entire Athenian fleet and army, and killed Nicias.

1604 – Guru Granth Sahib was established in the Golden Temple of Amritsar.

1783 – 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned); reaches 900 m altitude.

1784 – James Tytler made the first balloon ascent in Britain in a hot-air balloon at Ediburgh, Scotland. He exhibited his “Grand Edinburgh Fire Balloon” in the uncompleted dome of Robert Adam’s Register House. It was barrel-shaped, 40-ft tall, 30-ft diameter, with hot air produced by a stove. He wore a cork jacket for protection, and sat a small wicker packing case below the balloon. Before a small number of onlookers, the balloon rose to 350 feet in the air, travelled half a mile, and landed in Restalrig village. Tytler reported that the flight was “most agreeable with no giddiness” and that he “amused himself by looking at the spectators below.” Four days later, a large paying audience saw it, but that flight was much less successful.

1859 – “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania. The drilling had reached 69 feet 6 inches, when a dark film floating on the water below the derrick floor was noticed.

1939 -Sir Frank Whittle and Hans J.P. von Ohain invented the craft that became the first jet-powered airplane to fly. It remained airborne for seven minutes.

1950 – The BBC transmitted in Britain the first cross-Channel live television program by microwave relay links celebrated the centenary of the first cross-Channel telegraph by submarine cable.

1979 – 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and last Viceroy of India, is killed along with three companions, two of them children by the IRA when his boat is blown up near Sligo, Ireland.

1990 – The Cabinet Committee on political affairs decides to put a proposal before the Indian Parliament providing five to ten per cent of Central Government jobs reserved for economically weaker sections.

1992 – The President of India issues two ordinances making it mandatory for new medical and dental colleges to obtain prior approval of the Medical and Dental Councils of India before their establishment.

2003 – Mars approaches closest to the Earth since 57,617 BC.
2008 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States.

Born….

1908 – Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (6,996 runs).

1931 – Sri Chinmoy, Indian guru.

1980 – Neha Dhupia, actor.

RIP….

2006 – Hrishikesh Mukherjee, film director.

You may have known….
Shrimp can only swim backwards.

Good morning. Have a nice day.

 {Compiled by Lt. Col. (R) Raj Kadyan}