Today’s Motto: ‘In an argument, volume is no substitute for depth’

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

On this day, 02 Aug ….

1695 – A British patent was granted to Daniel Quare for a portable  weather-glass  Barometer.

1819 – 1st parachute jump in U.S.

1841 – The word—dinosaur (“terrible lizard”)  was used for first time by Richard Owen while addressing the Annual Meeting of the British Association in Plymouth, England.

1858 – Government of India transferred from East India Company to  the Crown. After the transfer, the Supreme British ruler in India was called as ‘Viceroy’. Lord Canning was made the first Viceroy of India (pic credit-John J Edwin Mayall).

1870 – Tower Subway, the first tube railway in the world, was opened under the River Thames in London. It was not successful due to low use and frequent breakdowns, and the railway closed within three months. The tunnel was converted to a foot tunnel with stairs. It was closed in 1894 when the opening of the nearby Tower Bridge made it redundant. The tunnel now holds water mains and fibre optic cables.

1875 – World 1st roller skating rink opens in London.

1880 – Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted officially by Parliament. GMT was originally set-up to aid naval navigation. In the 1840 ‘s with the introduction of the railways there was a need in Britain for a national time system to replace the local time adopted by major towns and cities.

1892 – George A. Wheeler, of New York City, patented ideas for the first practical moving staircase, though it was never built. Some of its features were incorporated in the prototype built by the Otis Elevator Company in 1899. Seeberger with Otis installed the first step-type escalator made for public use at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, where it won first prize.

1935 – The British pass Govt. of India Act, separating Burma, Aden from India.

1938 – The first nylon-bristle toothbrush in the U.S. was described in a New York Times business report. Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft toothbrush, a new product, used synthetic DuPont nylon bristles instead of natural hog bristles. It had four guarantees: “No bristle shedding, 100 per cent waterproofed, longer life, greater cleansing power”.

1987 – Vishwanathan Anand becomes the first Asian to win the World Junior Chess championship. He became India’s first Chess  Grandmaster.Anand won several International Chess awards and was World No. 1 for 5 times, World Rapid Chess Champion 4 times and twice World  Cup  Chess award winner.

1987 – Geet Sethi retains the World Amateur Billiards  title and is also  Snooker champion. . He won 8 World Professional Billiards titles, 2 World titles, several  Asian Gasmes titles

1993 – CEC TN Seshan postpones all elections including the by-elections to December in protest against the Central Government’s attempt to subjugate the Commission. A  Tamil Iyer Brahmin, was a  bold   IAS officer of Indian who served as Chief Election Commissioner  of India between 1990-96, and is credited  with bringing in several reforms to Indian electoral system viz., Code of Conduct, EID Card, Criminal records and  Income details etc. Before  becoming CEC, he had serced as Cabinet Secretary  in the Union Govt.  At a time he disqualified 14,000 candidates  for above lapses. He was honoured  with Raman Magsaysay award for his his bold  reforms in  EC. He later faught Lok Sabha election from Ahmedabad on Congress ticket  but lost to BJP stalwart  LK Advani. In 1999, he faught Presidentail election but lost to Congress’  KR Narayan.  He was   later sent to Rajya Sabha by Shiv Sena   (pic credit-anandabazar.com). 

2000 – The Lok Sabha performs a ”hat-trick” by setting off the process for the creation of three new states by passing the Jharkhand Bill.  Through  3 separate bills, 3 new states  were created  viz.,  on  Nov. 01, 2000  Chhattisgarh  state was created out of Madhya Pradesh; on Nov. 09  Uttrakhand  state out of Uttar Pradesh and  on Nov. 15  Jharkand out of Bihar, making it the  28th State of the Union of India.

2017 – More than a billion people around the world need glasses and 36 million are blind, according to new study published in “The Lancet”.

Born…. 1844–Dinsha Eduljee Wacha, a Parsee writer, freedom fighter and founding member of Indian National Congress  in 1885 (pic credit-www.kamat.com).

1861 – Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, father of Chemistry in India.  Popular as PC Roy, he was a simple and patriotic scientist, who made tremendous efforts for the country’s self-reliance in chemical technology. An educationist,  reformer and  industrialist, who  founded  Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceutical, the first pharma company in India. He researched on Nitrite derivatives and was awarded CIE, (the Order of Indian Empire) and  several  other  honours,  doctorates  etc.

1877- Ravishankar Shukla.  Freedom fighter, Congress politician and Chief Minister of Central Provinces and Berar from 1946-50 and later of Madhya Pradesh 1950-56. His sons VC Shukla and SC Shukla  were also  politicians post-Independence  and  ministers.

1878 – Pingali Venkayya, designer of the original  ‘Tiranga’ the National Flag of India. He presented  a flag with Red and Green  stripes to Gandhiji, when he came to Vijaywada  in 1921 to attend a Congress session.  After several changes, adding a White stripe with Ashoka Chakra in the middle, the final  version of Tricolour waas adopted  by Constituient Assembly on July 22, 1947. 

1922 – Gangaprasad Birla, great industrialist and scion of Birla family, grandson of BD Birla. He founded Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani, Hyderbad Industries and emphasized on technical  and medical education. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan (yourstory.com).

1924 – James Baldwin. American writer and Civil Rights activist. His novels on native Americans ‘Go Tell On The Mountain’ and ‘I Am Not Your Negro’, ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’  were  tremendously popular (pic credit-medium.com).

1992- Charlie XCX. (Charlotte Emma Aitchison).  British singer and song writer, who wrote  popular songs ‘I Love It’, ‘Fancy ‘, ‘Boom Clasp’ ‘Hot Pursuit’ etc. She won 3 Grammy, 3 Billboard  Music, 5 Brit  Awards,  9 MTV Europe Music and 10 MTV Video Music awards  and more.

RIP…. 1922 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-American inventor of the telephone. He co-founded American Telephone & Telegraph company in 1885 and Bell System later.  He also spread his  communications industry into Canada.  At one time his company was one of the top  business houses of America and Canada.

You may have known…. As of 9 December 2025, there are a total of 800 districts in India. Uttar Pradesh has  the maximum  75 distts.                                                                                        {Compiled by Lt. Gen. (R)  Raj Kadyan}