Motto for Today: ‘The only unfair fight is the one you lose.’

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

On this day, Nov.03……

1838 – The Times of India, the world’s largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper, is founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.

1862 – Dr. Richard Gatling patents machine gun.

1892 – The first automatic telephone exchange, using the switching device invented by Almon B. Strowger, opened to the public in LaPorte, Indiana, US, with about seventy-five subscribers. This early system did not use a dial to enter the desired number. Instead, using three keys, one for each digit of a three-digit number, a subscriber pressed each key the appropriate number of times for each digit. (In the UK, the very first Strowger exchange opened at Epsom in Surrey in 1912).

1906 – “SOS” was specified as the international distress signal, in a document signed by representatives of 27 nations at the second International Wireless Telegraph Convention in Berlin. It would replace the earlier Marconi call sign CQD. By 1904 many transatlantic British ships had wireless equipment. First used in England on landline wires, “CQ” preceded time signals and special notices as a sign for “all stations.” The Marconi company suggested adding the “D” meaning distress. The code “CQD” was established as a distress signal on 1 Feb 1904, but was never chosen from such a phrase as “Come Quick Danger.” The 1906 Conference proceedings do not detail the discussions about the choice of SOS. The likely reason is that it was speedy to tap out (not from “Save Our Souls”).

1911 – Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.

1952 – Clarence Birdseye marketed the first frozen peas in Chester, N.Y. While a U.S. field naturalist near the Arctic, he had learned the technique of flash freezing from Labrador Inuit.

1957 – Sputnik 2 was launched, with the first live animal sent into space – a Siberian husky dog, Laika (“barker” in Russian). By design, the craft was not planned for recovery, and Laika died in orbit. Biological data, the first data of its kind, was transmitted back to Earth while she lived. The data showed scientists how Laika was adapting to space – information important to the imminent planned manned missions.

1984 – 3,000 die in 3-day riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination.

1988 – Indian armed forces mounted special operations to help the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives and dealt with the 150 sea-borne invaders who stormed Maldivian Capital, Male and sought to overthrow the democratically elected Government of the Maldives.

1998 – Mamta Banerjee, the TMC leader resigns from Central Coordinating Committee of the BJP and Allies to highlight the issue of spiraling vegetable prices, but Vajpayee refused to accept the resignation.

2013 – Africa, Europe and the United States experience a rare solar eclipse, with the west African nation of Gabon enjoying peak viewing when the total eclipse sweeps across a path nearly 60 kilometers wide.

2014 – One World Trade Centre opens, 13 years after terrorists destroyed the twin towers of the original World Trade Centre; the tower was one of 5 to be built on the same site and, at 1,773 feet high, is now the tallest building in the United States.

Born….

1749 – Daniel Rutherford, Scottish chemist and photographer who discovered the portion of air that does not support combustion, now known to be nitrogen.

1901 – Prithviraj Kapoor, actor.

1933 – Amartya Kumar Sen, economist.

1937 – Laxmikant Shantaram Kudalkar, (of the popular composer duo Laxmikant Pyarelal fame) was born on the day of Laxmi Puja, on 3 November 1937. Probably, because of the day of his birth, his parents named him Laxmikant, after the goddess Laxmi.

RIP….

1990 – Manmohan Krishna, actor.

1992 – Premnath, actor.

You may have known….

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

{compiled by Lt. Gen. (R) Raj Kadyan}