Today’s Motto: ‘Everything is going to be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end’

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

On this day, Mar 13………….

1781 – English astronomer William Herschel detected Uranus in the night sky, but he thought it was a comet. It was the first planet to be discovered with the aid of a telescope.

1852 – Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the New York Lantern weekly.

1877 – The first U.S. patent for earmuffs was issued to teen-aged Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine . While trying out a new pair of ice-skates one winter, he experienced stinging ears, and solved his problem with beaver fur pads on a wire frame. By his mid-twenties, he had a factory and 11 workers producing in his hometown of Farmington producing 50,000 earmuffs yearly. His distribution grew to 400,000 pairs in 1936, the year he died. (He patented many other inventions. In 1977, Maine’s legislature declared 21 Dec, the first day of winter, as the annual Chester Greenwood Day. His hometown celebrates with a parade in early December, although the Greenwood Ear Protector factory is now a laundry).

1878 – The Vernacular Press Act was passed which subsequently made the Amrita Bazar Patrika of Calcutta an English newspaper.

1894 – J L Johnstone of England invents horse racing starting gate.

1935 – Driving tests introduced in Great Britain.

1938 – Hitler merged Austria in Germany.

1963 – Indian Government announced ‘Arjun Awards’ to boost the morale of various sports personalities.

1989 – The first straw-fired thermal power plant was laid in Jakhari village of Punjab.

1997 – Sister Nirmala Joshi, 63, is chosen to succeed Mother Teresa as the Superior-General of Missionaries of Charity.

2000 – Parliament approves TRAI Bill seeking to bifurcate it into a Tribunal and a Regulator, with the Rajya Sabha passing the measure by a voice vote.

2003 – The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy.

2012 – A Harvard Medical School study claims that red meat increases the risk of death and has additional negative health implications.

2012 – Encyclopaedia Britannica announces that it will no longer publish printed versions of its encyclopaedia.

2013  – North Korea shreds the Korean Armistice agreement.

2018 – National Geographic magazine admits its past coverage was racist in issue to mark 50 years since death of Martin Luther King Jr. (pic credit-Vox)

2023 – Vinyl records outsell CDs in the US for the first time since 1987 (41 million vinyl records vs 33 million CDs), according to new report.

Born….

1980 – Varun Gandhi, grandson of Mrs Indira Gandhi and son of late Sanjay Gandhi -Maneka Gandhi. Presently BJP Member of Lok Sabha from  Pilibhit U.P.(pic credit-BusinessStandard)

1984 – Geeta Basra, model and actor.  Married cricketer Harbhajan Singh, now Rajya Sabha Member from Aam Aadmi Party. (pic credit- StarsUnfolded)

2011 – Pratham Vatsain, first child of Vatsain family born outside India (Frankfurt, Germany).  Spotted here with his Didi and Dadu, in Chandigarh. 

RIP….

1800 – Nana Phadanvis (Balaji Janardan Bhanu), veteran leader of Peshwa Kingdom.

1842 – English soldier and inventor of the Shrapnel shell, a spherical case designed to explode in midair, spreading its content of small lead musket balls to injure enemy soldiers over a wide area.

1940 – Michael O’ Dwyer, former Governor of Punjab, who ordered firing on Indian Freedom Fighters attending a peaceful protest against English rule on April 13, 1919. He was shot by revolutionary Udham Singh in Caxton Hall at point-blank range in full view of a large gathering in London. (pics credit-Saachi Art and Wikipedia).

You may have known….

American engineers considered using 200 nuclear bombs to create an artificial sea in the Sahara.

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