Motto for Today: ‘You have detractors? That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.’

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

On this day, August 29 ….

1612 – Battle at Surat: English fleet beats Portuguese.

1828 – The first U.S. patent for a brake of any kind was issued to Robert Turner. This was for a “self-regulating wagon brake.”

1866 – A public demonstration was given of the first cog railway in the world to show the first half-mile of track at the base of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast U.S. Invented by Sylvester Marsh of Littleton, work began on the railway in May 1866 and finished in July 1869 at a cost of $139,500. In 1869, the Cog Railway was an engineering marvel, a new technology of toothed cog gears, rack rails and tilted boilers. A third toothed rail was laid between the steel rails for the wheels. (In the present day, it remains in use, the only cog railway still powered by steam).

1885 – Boxing’s 1st heavyweight title fight with 3-oz gloves and 3-minute rounds fought between John L Sullivan and Dominick McCaffrey.

1893 – Patent was issued to Whitcomb L. Judson for a “Zipper Clasp Locker or Unlocker for Shoes.”

1896 – Chop suey invented in New York City by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador.

1947 – B.R. Ambedkar is appointed chairman of the drafting committee for the Indian constitution.

1959 – India sends troops to Tibet border to block the Chinese.

1962 – The dangerous long-range side-effects of DDT and other pesticides were the subject of a press-conference question to President John F. Kennedy. In his reply, he acknowledged Rachel Carson’s ground-breaking environmental book on the subject (Silent Spring) and stated that the government was taking a closer look at this. (Eventually, in 1972, DDT was banned in the US). (India is the only country still manufacturing the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known at DDT; India opposed the proposal to commit to a deadline on a worldwide ban on pesticide DDT by 2020).

1965 – Astronaut Gordon Cooper in orbit 100 miles above the Earth aboard Gemini 5, held a conversation with aquanaut M. Scott Carpenter in Sealab II which was 205 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It was the first time an astronaut in space spoke with an aquanaut.

1974 – Lokdal Party established under the presidency of Chaudhary Charansingh.

1990 – Saddam Hussein declares America can’t beat Iraq.

1991 – Second operational Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS-1B) launched by a Russian launch vehicle, Vostok. (It is still in service).

1993 – Tamil refugees leave Madras for Sri Lanka apparently on their own free will.

1995 – India declared 29 August as National Sports Day.

2015 – NASA isolated a six-person team for a year within a small dome in Hawaii in order to simulate theoretical conditions of a Mars mission; the team would have no fresh air or fresh food, and a spacesuit must be worn when exiting the dome.

Born….1915 – Ingrid Bergman, actor.

1923 – Hirulal Gaekwad, cricket all-rounder (Test for India 1952-53).

1932 – Mahmood, actor.

1958 – Michael Jackson, recording artist and King of Pop.

1959 – Akkineni Nagarjuna, Telugu actor.

RIP….

1982 – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actor (Casablanca, Gaslight), dies on her 67th birthday.

1982 – Shree Maa Anandmayee of universal fame. (Her body was laid to rest at Shree Anandamayee Ashram in Kankhal).

You may have known….

Strands of spider web are stronger than steel wire of the same thickness.

Good morning. Have a nice day

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