Today’s Motto: ‘There is no age limit for learning’

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

On this day, 13 Jan….

1906 – 1st radio set advertised (Telimco for $7.50 in Scientific American) claimed to receive signals up to one mile.

1908 – Henry Farman, an English-born Frenchman, flew the first one-kilometre circuit, winning the Grand Prix de Aviation. The entire flight lasted 28-sec, and covered the prescribed kilometre. (Although the Wrights may have accomplished this at an earlier date, this was the first such flight in front of official witnesses).

1930 – “Mickey Mouse” comic strip 1st appears.   Cartoonist  Ub Iwerks  of Kansas City,  a popular  animator,  character designer, inventor and special effects technician drew the strip, though many credit this to Walt Disney who wrote the texts  and Win Smith, another colleague  also  contributed  new funny ideas.                                             Mickey Mouse strip was running  in over 60 newspapers in US and other countries by 1940 and later spread to world over. Walt Disney  co. has a net worth of  $ 205.6 Billion as in Yr. 2023.

1942 – The first use of an ejection seat to save a pilot was made.

1957 – The Wham-O Company developed the first frisbee.

1967 – Samachar Bharti inaugurated  by veteran journalist Dharmvir Gandhi and Lala Pheroz Chand in New Delhi.

1976 – The first machine for reading printed matter aloud was given its first public demonstration, by its inventor, Raymond Kurzwell. Using a camera with a computer, pages of printed matter could be scanned, the letters analysed, and reproduced in synthesized English speech at 150 words per minute.

2020 – Oldest celestial  meteorite material existing on earth at 7.5 billion years old, revealed by scientists studying the Murchison meteorite that fell to earth in Australia in 1960s.

2021 World’s oldest known cave painting of an animal – a pig, 45,000 years old, discovered in Leang Tedongnge cave, island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Although over 350 old cave paintings including Mohan Da Zaro and others have been credited with being  ancient ( photo credit-Luc-Henri Faze).

Born…. 1938 – Pt.  Shivkumar Sharma, veteran  Santoor player. Santoor is a Kashmiri folk instrument earlier played in local folk songs, public functions.  Shivkumar Sharma was awarded international  honors including Honorary citizenship  of the City of Baltimore in 1985, Sangeet Natak Akademy in 1986,  Padam Shri and Padam Vibhushan in 2001.

1949 – Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma,  Patiala-born, the  first Indian cosmonaut (in Soyuz T-11) to go into space. He went into space alongwith 2 other Soviet cosmonauts on April 03, 1984 and spent 7 days 21 hours 40 minutes in space. He spoke to then PM Indira Gandhi and some media persons from the spacecraft. He was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union and Ashoka Chakra, the highest gallentry  award.

1977- Orlando Bloom. British actor, famous for his ocean raider role in Lord of the Rings and 39 other films. He was awaded Screen  Actors Guild, Hollywood Walk of Fame and other awards.            1982 – Ruth Wilson. British actress who has done about  films like The Affair, The Royal Scandal, Luther, Mrs Wilson, The Woman in The Wall, His Dark Materials etc.

RIP….   1921- Raghunath Narasimha Mudholkar, who presided over annual session of  Indian National Congress in 1912 at  Bankipore.

1928- Wilhelm Wiens. German physicist, who founded the theory of heat in electromagnetic operations. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1911.

1974 – Saraswatibai Rane, famous music expert and classical singer. She was the daughter of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, the founder of Kirana Gharana. She and her elder sister Hirabai had a very fine jugalbandi, they were awarded Bal Gandharwa Samman, ITC Sasngeet Research and Padam Bhushan samman by Govt. of India apart from several honors.

You may have known…. Many times in the past, the governments have taken land from farmers at cheap prices and allegedly sold  on to the  industrialists at a higher price. The industrialists have then sold it on further and made a hefty killing. Hence, the trust system that is required for acquiring land for public purposes and building industry has broken down.                                      Although the Govts. claim they develop the land and provide basic infrastructures like road layouts,  electric power, water  supply,  drains etc. before selling to the industryial units.                                                                                                                                                                            {Compiled by Lt. Gen. (R) Raj Kadyan}