Today’s Motto: ‘The human heart will never wrinkle’

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

On this day, 23 Jan….

971 – First regular war Elephant Corps employed in the Chinese army (pic ccredit-Pinterest).

1909 – 1st radio rescue  applied  for communication in  sea.

1920 – Air transportation began in India by two Royal Air Force planes between Karachi and Bombay, and Air Mail services were  started.

1957 – V. K. Krishna Menon begins the longest ever speech at the UN on Kashmir- 8 hours over 2 days.

1960 – A specially constructed bathyscaphe, the Trieste, descended 35,810 feet in the Pacific Ocean into Challenger Deep. This, is the deepest point known to exist on earth. The Trieste cabin was a six-foot diameter steel capsule weighing 14 tons engineered by Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard to withstand the 16,000 lbs/sq.in. water pressure at that depth. Jacques Piccard (Auguste’s son) and Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh made the five-hour descent, setting a deep-diving record. Through their window, they saw a foot-long fish, and thus answered the question of biologists who long wondered whether life could exist at such depths of the ocean. The record has stood unchallenged since their historic dive (pic credit-ipaperds.com).

1964 – The first animal (chimpanzee) to human heart transplant was made.

1978 – The motto “Shastra se Shakti” (Strength though arms) in Hindi written in Devnagiri script was approved by the President of India as the motto of the Army Ordnance Corps.

1992 – India becomes ASEAN dialogue partner.

1997 – Statue of Subhash Bose unveiled inside Parliament House.

1997 – 50,000 miners in Orissa lose jobs as 57 mines are closed down.

2002 – Reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, and subsequently murdered.

Born….
1897 – Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, great nationalist leader and freedom fighter, was born at Cuttack. At the age of 23, he was ranked fourth in the I.C.S. Examination in London. He joined  Congress Party  for struggle against British rule in India and also became Congress President in 1938  despite party’s supreme leader,  MK  Gandhi opposing his support for  violent means  for getting Freedom.  He was imprisoned but escaped  clandestinely to Kabul, Moscow, Germany for getting support for war against the British.  He went  to Japan to raise Azad Hind Fauz  with support from uncle Rash Behari Bose  the fought against the British with his Azad Hind Fauj in the second World War. He was declared Prime Minister-in-exile when he captured  Andeman Nicobar  and other areas of British controlled areas.   He was rumoured to have died in an aeroplane accident in Japan on Augiust 18, 1945, though it was never confirmed.  He’s believed to have stayed underground ever after this  incident.                                                           January 23 is celebrated as Prakram Divas by Indian forces since 2021.

1915 – Kamal Nayan Bajaj, famous industrialist and socialist freedom fighter, who supported Congress Party during Freedom struggle. He took over  Bajaj Automobiles from his father Jamnalal Bajaj  and expanded his business to cotton  ginning, real estate,  trading etc.  His son Rahul  took the Bajaj group to rank at No. 10 among Forbe’s 100 top industries  list,  and  has a networth of  $23.4 Billion as on Oct. 09, 2024.

1927 – Balasaheb Thackrey, Shiv Sena chief. A cartoonist, writer,  thinker,  socisal reformer who founded Shiv Sena to fight underworld  black money and crime in  Bombay (Maharashtra) and founded Shiv Sena, a political party . Later he became a champion of Hindu revivalism.

1950 – Richard Gilliand. Popular American actor, knownn for roles in Airplane II, Sequel, Designing Women, CBS Summer Playhouse etc. (pic credit- Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

RIP….  1975 – Omeo Kumar Das, one of the great patriots of Assam, freedom fighter, journalist and became a minister in 1970s . He was a Gandhian  and was also named Lok Nayak. He translated Gandhi Ji’s autobiography “My Experiments with Truth” in Assamese language. He was honored with Padam Bhushan in 1963.

2021 – Larry King. American author, actor, TV host. He won 2 Peabodys, an Emmy and  10 Cable ACE awards.

You may have known….

In 1800, some 800,000 hectares was irrigated in India. The British Raj by 1940 built significant number of canals and irrigation systems in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Assam and Orissa. The Ganges Canal reached 350 miles from Haridwar to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.   After Independence  a 650 km long  Rajasthan  canal was started in  1958   and runs from Punjab, Haryana to Rajasthan Thars (19.63 million hectare area).  Renamed as Indira Gandhi Canal in 1984, it was fully completed in 2010.

 

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