Today’s Motto: ‘Always make your own story’
As Every Day makes a new beginning in life, it brings new opportunities, opens new avenues, to perform and make a mark, to write a Page in the History Books!
This is Your Day-TODAY: Take a Determined Step Forward and Make History!
On this day, 14 Jul….
1789 – Storming of the Bastille in Paris. It marked the beginning of the French Revolution. This event is celebrated 
annually as Bastille Day in France, the country’s national holiday.
1850 – The first public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration in the U.S. took place during a dinner.
1867 – Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time. In 1866 Nobel produced what he believed was a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin called dynamite. He established his own factory to produce it but in 1864 an explosion at the plant killed Nobel’s younger brother and four other workers. Deeply shocked by thi
s event, he now worked on a safer explosive and in 1875 came up with gelignite.
1933 – A sterilization law was passed in Nazi Germany, known as Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring. Any German was a target if suffering from any of the following mental conditions that were expected to be hereditary: congenital mental deficiency, schizophrenia or manic-depressive insanity. Other expected hereditary conditions included: epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, blindness, deafness, any severe hereditary deformity or even severe alcoholism.
Within a f
ew years, up to an estimated 400,000 Germans were involuntarily sterilized in pursuit of this national goal of “racial hygiene”. Later on a Nuremburg Code was written for any sterlization. (pic credit-tmj.com)
1942 – Britishers–Quit India – Angrezo Bharat Chhodo Andolan -resolution was passed by Congress Working Committee. They demanded departure of British and agreed on passive resistance until India’s independence. It was declared on 8th August, 1942 at August Kranti Maidan (Gowalia Tank).
1944 – General Omar Bradley inspected the invention of Sgt. Curtis G. Culin, the heavy steel, tusk-like prongs welded on the front of a Sherman tank. During the Normandy campaign in France, the advance of the U.S. Sherman tanks had been seriously obstructed by the local terrain. Hedgerows between small fields were tall, very thickly overgrown. Only with the prongs, dubbed the Rhinocerous, could the tanks ram through without the front end rising high and exposing their vulnerable underbelly to shells from the enemy hidden by hedgerows (Pic credit- US Army/Getty Images).
1969 – 85 persons were killed when a freight train collided with a passanger train near Jaipur.
1999 – Scientists uncover possible reason for SS Waratah’s disappearance 100 years later. (The SS Waratah was a 500-foot long cargo liner steamship that operated between Europe and Australia in the early 1900s. In July 1909, the ship, en route from Durban to Cape Town, disappeared with 211 passengers and crew aboard. To this day, no trace of the ship has been found.
2013 – The world’s last telegram was sent in India. It was the last major country to shut down telegram service. India’s 163-year-old telegram service was no longer needed, as e-mail and texting had replaced bicycle telegram messengers.
2014 – The Church of England votes in favor of allowing women to become Bishops for the first time.
2023 -India launches its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft from Sriharikota space centre on the country’s third moon mission. It landed on the South Pole of Moon’s surface on Aug. 23 and conducted experiments. The mission consists of a Vikram lunar lander and a Pragyan lunar rover, as replacements for the equivalents on Chandrayaan-2, which had crashed on landing in 2019.
Born…. 1900 – Deshbandhu Gupta, a famous patriot, freedom fighter, and journalist. Publisher of Sun magazine in Delhi.
1937 – Sudha Shivpuri, actress who was most famous for her role as Baa in the Hindi TV serial Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. She was honoured with Sangeet Natak Akademy award in 2009. Her husband Om Shivpuri was also a popular cinema and TV personality.
RIP…. 1963 – Swami Shivanand Saraswati, religious leader. Founder of Divine Life Society in 1963 in Pattamadai (Tamil Nadu) and Yoga Guru, Vedanta thinker and author who wrote over 200 books on Sanatana Sanskriti, Vedanta and such spiritual subjects.
2013 – Leela Chitnis, a famous Hindi film actress. Leela Chitnis acted for 52 years and was the heroine of Ashok K
umar, then later she appeared in several films as the mother of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Dev Anand. Apart from acting, Leela Chitnis also produced and directed the film ‘Aaj Ki Baat’ (1955). She was the first Indian actress to appear in an ad film for the soap ‘Lux’ in 1941.
You may have known…. Bogibeel Bridge is the longest railway bridge in India. It is an astonishing 4.94 kilometres and c
onnects Dibrugarh to Dhemaji across the mighty Brahmputra river. This Railway bridge often happens to be the longest road-cum-railway bridge in India along with being the second longest road-cum-railway bridge in all of Asia. 
{Compiled by Lt. Gen. (R) Raj Kadyan}
