Today’s Motto: ‘The fire that destroys the Barn, is started by a small Match Stick’

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

On this day, 01 Aug ….

1619 – 1st black Americans (20) lands at Jamestown, Virginia, US.

1774 – Joseph Priestley, British Presbyterian minister and chemist, identified a gas which he called “dephlogisticated air” — later known as Oxygen.

1793 – The first definition was made for the metre: one ten-millionth of the northern quadrant of the Paris meridian (5,132,430 toises of Paris, from the north pole to the equator). The this was six French feet, 76.74 English inches, a pre-metric measure, from Latin tendere, to stretch (implying the distance between fingertips of a man’s arms stretched horizontally sideways, similar to the English fathom). In the Middle Ages, “the toise of Paris” was an iron bar with two tabs, fixed in a wall at the foot of the staircase of the Grand Châtelet in Paris.

1873 – English inventor Andrew Smith Hallidie, in the U.S. since 1852, revolutionised transportation when he successfully tested a cable car he had designed to solve the problem of providing mass transit up San Francisco’s steep hills.

1905 – Horse drawn tram cars were closed down in Bombay. This service was started on May 9, 1874 with 20 tram cars and 200 horses. The very first day of its run, the number of passengers carried was 451 and the amount earned was Rs. 85/- on the last day it had 1360 horses and carried 71,947 passengers and earned Rs.4,260/.

1941 – Parade magazine called it “…the Army’s most intriguing new gadget” The gadget was “a tiny truck which can do practically everything.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower said that America couldn’t have won World War II without it. The tiny truck was the Jeep, built at the time by the Willys Truck Company. Many explanations of the origin of the word jeep have proven difficult to verify. The most widely held theory is that the military designation GP (for Government Purposes or General Purpose) was slurred into the word Jeep. A counter to the slurred GP theory was that the vehicle was designed for specific duties, and was never referred to as “General Purpose”. It is also suggested that soldiers at the time were so impressed with the new vehicles that they informally named it after Eugene the Jeep, a character in the Popeye comic strip and cartoons that could solve any problem. The word jeep, however, was used as early as 1914 by US Army mechanics assigned to test new vehicles. In 1937, tractors which were supplied to the US Army were called jeeps. A precursor of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was also referred to as the jeep).

1944 – Anne Frank’s last diary entry; 3 days later she is arrested.

1947 – Partition of India into India and Pakistan announced. Power to be transferred on August 14 midnight. Lord Mountbatten becomes Governor General of India and Muhammed Ali Jinnah, Governor General of Pakistan.

1957 – The Solar Building (Bridgers and Paxton Office Building), Albuquerque, US, was the first commercial building to be heated by the sun’s energy.

1974 – The People’s Liberation Army’s  Navy unit put into service Chang Zheng 1, their first nuclear-powered submarine, designed and built in China. Russia had refused to share nuclear propulsion technology with China, so Mao Tse-tung resolved to develop their own nuclear submarine building programme. As China’s first-generation design, its performance was generally inferior to American or Russian vessels of the time. It was decommissioned in 2000 (pic credit-astronautix.com).

1976 – Liz Taylor’s 6th divorce (re-divorces Richard Burton). She started her cine career as a child artist at age 7 and went on to do many  successful films. She married  eight times (with 7 different men) and  helped raise funds for HIV/AIDS victims  and persuaded Prez  Ronald Reagan declare  it as a ,major health hazard globally.

1986 – Amnesty scheme for evaders of taxes in India announced.

2000 – 27 ‘yatris’ die after militants attack a ‘langar’ in a Pahalgam health resort en route to the Amarnath cave shrine of  Lord Shiva.

2000 – A man in Israel become the first recipient of the Jarvik 2000, the first total artificial heart that can maintain blood flow in addition to generating a pulse.

2000 – The Lok Sabha adopts Uttar Pradesh State Reorganisation Bill paving the way for the creation of  Uttaranchal, the 27th State.

2020 – Egypt tells Elon Musk its Pyramids were not built by aliens after Musk tweets in support of a conspiracy theory that they were.

Born….  1882 – Purushottamdas Tandon, great leader and editor.  Also called Rajrishi for his  writings, statesmanship and popularity. He opposed Partition of India. Congress and other Congress leaders considered him as pro-Hinduism. He was honoured with Bharat Ratna in 1961.

1932 – Meena Kumari, legendary  film actress, poet and singer. also called Tragedy Queen of Indian cinema for her sad and tragic roles in  Baiju Bawra, Saheb Bibi aur Ghulam, Dil Ek Mandir, Pakeezah, Phool Aur Pather, Kaagaz Ke Phool,  Kaajal, Patrineeta, Mein Chup Rahungi, Mere Apne etc. She won 4 Filmfare, 3 BFJA awards. She remained Filmfare best actress for 13 years continuously.  She married   Kamaal Amrohi in  1952  but had  a much disturbed married life and she separated.   She died in 1972,  soon after  the releaee of her  most successful film Pakeezah which ran for 33 weeks at theatre  Maratha Mandir, Bombay.

1955 – Arun Lal, former  Indian opening  batsman  of mid-80’s from Delhi  who shifted to Bengal and stayed there for long. Arun played 16 Tests and scored 729 runs. He was also President of Bengal Cricket Association.  He was in the news recently, when he married his girlfriend Bulbul Saha (28 year younger to him).

RIP…. 1920 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a prominent national leader. Freedom fighter and one of the members of Trioka  fighting for India’s  Independence — Bal, Gopal and Lal.  (more on him in July 23 issue, as it was his 169th Birthday)

1999 – Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Kishoreganj (now in  Bangladesh)-born writer.  He authored numerous works in English and Bengali. His oeuvre provides a magisterial appraisal of the histories and cultures of India, especially in the context of British colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Chaudhuri is best known for The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, published in 1951. He moved to England in 1959  and was awarded  Ananda Purushkar, Sir Vidyasagar Purushkar. Desikottama Award by Vishwabharti Univ. and CBE  honour by the British Empire in 1992.

2008 – Harkishan Singh Surjeet, veteran Communist Party of India  leader.  He was President of CPI(M)M for several years when Jyoti Basu was the CM of Bengal.  (more in the  March 23 issue as it was his  109th Birthday).  He declined the offer from  Rajiv Gandhi (Congress  Party) and Janta Dal leaders  to have   Jyoti Basu as Prime Minister of India after the fall of VP Singh govt. in 1990 and again in 1991 after  Congress withdrew support from Chandrashekhar Singh Govt.

You may have known…. As per UNESCO  India’s average literacy rate  is 88.31%.  in 2026,  up  from  73% in  2011.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         {Compiled by Lt. Gen. (R)  Raj Kadyan}