Motto for Today: ‘Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.’

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

On this day, Dec.26……..

1854 – Wood-pulp paper 1st exhibited in Buffalo (US).

1865 – James H. Mason of Franklin, was issued the first U.S. patent for a coffee percolator.

1906 – The world’s first full-length feature film, the 70-min Story of the Kelly Gang was presented in the Town Hall at Melbourne, Australia. It was filmed at a cost of £450.

1925 – The Communist Party of India is founded.

1967 – A patent was issued to the Wham-O Mfg. Co. for their improvement of the Frisbee – an “aerodynamic toy to be thrown through the air – in throwing games.”

1975 – The Tupolev-144, the first passenger supersonic jet carried only mail and freight on its first commercial flight from Moscow to Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Although built to carry up to 140 passengers, it was at first limited to service carrying mail instead, because it was so loud. (Aeroflot ceased flying the dangerous and expensive Tupolev airplanes on 6 June 1978).

1978 – Former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, released from jail.

1985 – Rajiv Gandhi and Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq meet in Delhi and agree not to attack nuclear plants in each other’s country.

1982 – The Man of the Year in Time magazine was a non-human for the first time. A computer received the honour as 1982’s “greatest influence for good or evil.”

1989 – India debars Bofors from future contracts until they come out clean.

1989 – The Constitution 62nd Amendment Bill, seeking to extend reservation for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in Lok Sabha and state assemblies for another ten years, approved in Indian Parliament.

2004 – 9.3 magnitude earthquake creates a tsunami causing devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives and edges of the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people.

2018 – American Colin O’Brady is the first person to cross Antarctica solo and unassisted after 54 days at the Ross Ice Shelf.

Born….

1914 – Baba Amte, social activist.

1921 – Nurul. S. Hasan, educationist and statesman.

RIP….

1530 – Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent.

1999 – Shankar Dayal Sharma, former President of India.

Titbits….

1991 – Jack Ruby’s gun sells for $220,000 in auction. (He had used it to kill Lee Harvey Oswald while the latter was in police custody after being charged with assassinating U.S. President John F. Kennedy two days earlier).

You may have known….

Earth is the only planet not named after a god.

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