Today’s Motto: ‘Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour’

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

On this day, Feb 17….
1698 – Aurangzeb captured Jinjee fort, seat of Maratha power, after eight-year siege.

1817 – 1st US city lit by gas (Baltimore).

1818 – Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patented the “draisine”, the forerunner of the bicycle.

1867 – 1st ship passes through Suez Canal.

1869 – Mendeleev’s Periodic Table. Dmitri Mendeleev cancelled a planned visit to a factory and stayed at home working on the problem of how to arrange the chemical elements in a systematic way. To begin, he wrote each element and its chief properties on a separate card and arranged these in various patterns. Eventually he achieved a layout that suited him and copied it down on paper. Later that same day he decided a better arrangement by properties was possible and made a copy of that, which had similar elements grouped in vertical columns, unlike his first table, which grouped them horizontally. These historic documents still exist, and mark the beginning of the form of the Periodic Table as commonly used today.

1911 – The first self-starter, based on patented inventions created by General Motors engineers Clyde Coleman and Charles Kettering, was installed in a Cadillac.

1876 – Sardines 1st canned in US. (By Julius Wolff-Eastport).

1911 – 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship (Glenn Curtiss, San Diego).

1915 – Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WW I, is mortally wounded.

1933 – 1st issue of “Newsweek” magazine published.

1936 – The world’s first superhero, The Phantom, a cartoon strip by Lee Falk, makes his first appearance in comics (pics credit-Pinterset).

1938 – The first public experimental demonstration of Baird colour television was transmitted from Crystal Palace to the Dominion Theatre, London.

1948 – Gorkha Rifles Battalion Group (INDBATT) unit was re-designated as the 5th Battalion the 8th Gorkha Rifles (the Sirmoor Rifles).

1952 – Britain became the third nuclear power after the U.S. and Russia to include the atomic bomb in its armoury.

1996 – World chess champion Gary Kasparov defeated Deep Blue, IBM’s chess-playing computer, by winning a six-game match 4-2, in a regulation-style match held in Philadelphia.

1997 – Notorious criminal Charles Sobhraj released from jail after 20 years, and re-arrested soon after release under Foreigners’ Regional Registration Act.

2020 – Supreme Court grants equal rights to women in the Indian armed forces.

Born :  1792 – Budhu Nhagat. Freedom fighter from Ranchi Bihar, who led Kol Tribals and Lanka rebellion  in Chhoptanagpur area. He was captuired by the British forces and hanged to death.

1881- Bhagat Puran Singh. scientist, teacher, popular poet, folk song writer, Bhajan singer  and freedom fighter.  Born in Abotabad nown as a pioneer of Punjabi poetery and Hindi novelist during Dwivedi era of literature.

1889 – Jibananda Das. Most popular Bengali writer, poet after Rabindra Nath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.

1954 – K Chandershekhar Rao. Prominent Andhra/Telengana politician who fought for a separate Telangana state and became the first chief minister of the new state. He’s now the  leader of Opposition in the State Assembly.

1981 – Paris Hilton. American reality model, successful film celebrity, business woman. Known for series The Simple Life, House of Wax, Hollywood Love Story etc.

1986 – Lindsay Lohan. American actress, God fame thru’ The Parent Trap, Mean Girls, Herby Fully Loaded, Freaky Friday, I Know Who Killed Me etc. She won MTV and other awards.

RIP….   1670 – Tanhaji Malusare, Maratha warrior.  Shivaji won Singh Garh Fort from Mughals. This victory was on the shoulders of Tanhaji who was martyred in this attack. Shivaji proclaimed “Garh Alaa pan Singh Gela” which means that Fort was won but the Lion was lost (pic credit-Pinterest.com).

You may have known….

Jute industry continued to concentrate in the Hugli basin only. However, the number of jute mills rose from 64 in 1913-14 to 107 in 1938-39.

 

{Compiled b y  Lt. Gen. (R)  Raj Kadyan}