Today’s Motto: ‘Never plan the future through the past’

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

On this day, Dec. 29…….

1790 – An obituary was published for Thomas Fuller in Boston’s Columbian Sentinel. “Died—Negro Tom, the famous African calculator, aged 80 years.” He was enslaved from Africa at age 14. Fuller was a prodigy in arithmetical calculation, though he could neither read nor write. Once asked how many seconds a man lived in 70 years, some odd months, weeks and days, he speedily gave an answer that his questioner said was too high, but Fuller was correct as he had included the leap years in his calculation. If, in the course of a calculation, his progress was interrupted by conversation on another subject, he could continue by picking up where he had left off. Dr. Benjamin Rush, an anti-slavery campaigner, used Fuller’s ability as an example of the equivalent intellect of both black and white men (photo credit-Britannica).

1837 – Steam-powered threshing machine patented in US.

1860 – The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched.

1862 – Bowling ball invented.

1885 – A group of middle-class intellectuals in India, some of them British, founded the Indian National Congress to be a voice of Indian opinion to the British government. This was the origin of the later Congress Party which was founded in Bombay.

1891 – Edison patents “transmission of Radio signals electrically” (pic credit-ThoughtCo).

1939 – William Shockley wrote in his laboratory notebook: “It has today occurred to me that an amplifier using semiconductors rather than vacuum is in principle possible. He went on to develop the transistor, for which he shared (with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain) the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1940 – Worst German air raid on London as over 10,000 bombs including the 1st incendiary bombs are dropped on

the city as part of the Blitz (pic credit-Getty Images).

1959 – Durgapur Iron Plant in West Bengal was inaugurated.

1965 – First Indian-made tank ‘Vijayanta’ rolled off the Avadi Heavy Vehicles factory.

1984 – Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi claims victory in parliamentary elections.

1987 – Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko returned to Earth, ending his record 326-day space flight orbiting Earth in the Mir space station. The Soyuz spacecraft landed at a snow-covered site in Kazakhstan. His stay in space broke the previous Soviet record of 237 days.

1997 – Sonia Gandhi stepped into active politics.

2018 – Record lowest temperature of -111C registered by American satellite Noaa-20 in the western Pacific at top of large storm.

Born….

1800 – Charles Goodyear- American inventor who baked rubber mixed with sulphur and discovered the vulcanization process which made rubber practical as a commercial product (photo credit-Connecticut History).

1900 – Dinanath Mangeshkar, popular singer and father of legendary Lata Mangeshkar.

1917 – Ramanand Sagar, Bollywood film producer who produced and directed films like Paigham, Ghoonghat, Sangdil, Memsaab, Zindagi, Raaj Tilak, Baghawat Barsaat, Rajkumar, Insaniyat , Aankhen, Aarjoo etc.. He also produced/directed  popular TV epics Ramayan and Sri Krishna (photo credit-Jagran).

1942 – Rajesh Khanna, legendary actor  who ruled Bollywood for over 15 years through his films like Kati Patang, Anand, Aradhana, Do Raaste, Avataar, Aan Milo Sajna, Haathi Mere Saathi ,Swarg, Namak Haraam etc. (pic credit- Bollywood Hungama) .

1974 – Twinkle Khanna, Bollywood actor. and daughter of Rajesh Khanna.

RIP….

1938 – Mahavir Prasad Dvivedi, famous litterateur, writer, poet and editor.

You may have known….

When listening to music, our heartbeat will sync with the rhythm.

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