Today’s Motto: ‘To get acquainted with butterflies, one has to endure caterpillars’

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

On this day, 23 Jul….

(National Broadcasting Day in India: A day to acknowledge the significance of broadcasting in disseminating information and its role in the communication sector). After several changes, it is now called  Akashwani  (All India Radio) by Rabindranath Tagore. It now has 420 stations in 23 languages  and covers about 99% of Indian  population, 92% of the country.  It also has Global reach now through NewsOnAIR.com.

1555 – The Mughal ruler Humayun reached Delhi after defeating Sikandar Suri at Sirhind.

1715 – The first  lighthouse in America was authorised by the Boston Light Bill for construction at Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts. (The Lighthouse is also the last remaining manned station in the U.S).

1798 – Nepoleon Bonaparte conquers Alexandria Port of Egypt. It is also major city  port of Egypt, believed to have been founded by Alexander, in 332 BCE on the Mediterranian Coast.  The port extends to over 40 km  and is second largest city of Egypt after Cairo.

1829 – William Austin Burt, a surveyor, of Mount Vernon, Michigan, received a patent for his typographer, a forerunner of the typewriter (pic credit-timetoast.com).

1886 – Gottlieb Daimler invented his first car. He was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobiles  (pic credit-animalia-life-club).

1888 – Scottish John Boyd Dunlop, applied to patent the pneumatic tyre as “an improvement in the tyres or wheels for bicycles, tricycles and other road tyres. To improve his son’s bicycle, Dunlop developed it. He formed a company in 1889 (then Dunlop Rubber Co in 1900), and with help from demonstration  benefit on racing bicycles, Dunlop had a successful product. These first tyres were glued to the wheel rim.

1903 – Ford Motor sells 1st Model A car  for $750 (approximately INR 62,767). It made the beginning of a   legacy  by Henry Ford,  that  shaped the future of the automobile industry for mobility.

1959 – Richard Nixon, American president, visits USSR. He was 37th President of America and had to resign in 1974 due to Watergate Scandal.

1990 – Indian PM Vishwanath Pratap Singh, and USSR President  Mikhail  Gorbachev sign joint declaration committing their countries to building a nuclear-free and non-violent world in the first Indian-Soviet summit in the post-Gorbachev Soviet Union in Moscow.

2010 – The world’s first recorded  heaviest hailstone fell in Vivian, South Dakota weighing 1-lb 15-oz, and size 8.0-in diam. (A larger hailstone is said to have fallen on 14 Apr 1986 that weighed 2-lb 4-oz during a hailstorm in Bangladesh that killed 92 people).

2019 – Boris Johnson elected leader of Conservative Party  and  British Prime Minister. He  replanced  Theressa May.

2019 – Investigation launched after no Girl  born in three months in 132 villages in Uttarkashi district of India, with sex-selective abortions suspected as the reason.

Born…. 1856 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian scholar, mathematician, philosopher, and militant nationalist who helped lay the foundation for India’s independence.  He was member of the legendary troika – Bal, Gopal and Lal (epithet for Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopalakrishna Gokhle and Lala Lajpat Rai) of  Indian Freedom Movement in 1900s to 1930s, before MK Gandhi took it  over through  Ahimsa.

1906 – Pandit Chandrashekhar Azad, famous revolutionary of the Indian freedom struggle. 17-year-old Chandrashekhar Azad joined the revolutionary party ‘Hindustan Republican Association’. He took an active part in the famous ‘Kakori Kand’ and escaped throwing dust in the eyes of the police. When Mahatma Gandhi started the non-cooperation movement in 1921, he made an active contribution to it. Under the successful leadership of Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt detonated a bomb in the Central Assembly of Delhi on April 8, 1929.  Azad was marked by the Britishers for his revoltionary actions and chased with armed units, unitl Feb. 27, 1931, he was surrounded by police  in the Alfred Park, Prayagraj  (then Allahabad). He killed 3 policemen but was himself  wounded badly. So he shot himself, to  fulfil his pledge  to remain Azad and  avoid  arrest  until death.  He had also read Karl Marx’s theory of Communism. As a tribute to his martyrdom,  many films were made viz., Shaheed,  Shaheed-e.Azam, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Rang De Basanti, Swaraj serial  and in different  languages by Indian film idustry.

RIP….2012 – Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, a great freedom fighter and officer of the Azad Hind Fauj.  She was the Minister of Women’s Affairs in the Azad Hind government

You may have known…. 1. Life expectancy in India – both sexes 72-7 years; females 74.4 years; males 71.2 years.

2.  More than 50% of India’s current population is below the age of 25 and over 65% below  age of 35. This indicates that India has a very young population with a significant demographic advantage.              {Compiled  by Lt. Gen. (R)  Raj Kadyan}