Saturday 31 October 2015

On this day, 31 Oct - Lt Gen Raj Kadyan

Unlike water, life does not flow  over the shortest possible route.
On this day, 31 Oct....
 
1815 - English chemist, Sir Humphry Davy patented the miner's safety lamp. Miners at work constantly met firedamp, an explosive mix of methane gas and air, during the working of coal. This was an almost insurmountable obstacle to the working of many of the collieries until the discovery of the safety lamp.
 
1888 -  Pneumatic bicycle tyres were patented by Scottish inventor, John Boyd Dunlop.
 
1951 - The zebra crossing was first introduced in Slough, Berkshire, England to reduce casulaties at pedestrian road crossings. (At that time there was only a tenth of the traffic now seen on the roads. The crossings existing then were marked by metal studs in the road. Those on foot could see them clearly but the motorist felt the familiar bumps only in the seconds before he or she collided with a pedestrian. Others things were tried but nothing had the visual impact of the broad white and black stripes across the road at a zebra crossing).
 
1962 - Krishna Menon, Defence Minister, resigned due to attack by China.
 
1956 - An airplane landed at the South Pole for the first time. Navy Admiral George J. Dufek was the first American to set foot on there, the first man since Scott to stand at the Pole. He came with an advance party to build the first permanent South Pole Station. 
 
1980 - Julian Nott sets world hot-air balloon altitude record at 16,806 m. (Starting with the first hot air balloon ascent by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier of France, where he rose to 79 feet,  Alan Eustace, a senior vice president at Google, reached 135,906 ft altitudre on 24 Oct 2014 on a balloon and returned to Earth by a parachute jump).
 
1984 - Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh at her home in New Delhi. (Indira Gandhi, the 4th Prime Minister of India, was assassinated at 09:20 am and died after 4 hours of surgery. She was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. She was walking through the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1, Safdarjung Road towards the neighbouring 1 Akbar Road office.The assassination happened in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the June 1984 assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar). 
 
1992 -  The Vatican admitted erring for over 359 years in formally condemning Galileo Galilei for entertaining scientific truths such as the Earth revolves around the sun, which the Roman Catholic Church long denounced as anti-scriptural heresy. After 13 years of inquiry, the Pope's commission of historic, scientific and theological scholars brought the pope a “not guilty” finding for Galileo. In
 
1633, at age 69, Galileo had been forced by the Roman Inquisition to repent and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest. Galileo is remembered as one of history's greatest scientists.
 
2000 - Chhattisgarh, the 26th State of Indian Union, comes into existence.
 
2011 - The world population reaches 7 billion inhabitants according to the United Nations.
 
Born....
1875 - Vallabhbhai Zaverbhai Patel, 'Iron man of India'. (He was also the first Deputy Prime Minister. His father had served in the army of the Rani of Jhansi against Britishers).
 
RIP....
1876 - Cyclone hits Bengal, centred near Bakarganj (now in Banlgadesh); about 200,000 die.
 
1918 - Spanish flu-virus kills 21,000 in US in one week.
 
1975 - Sachin Dev Burman, famous music director.
 
Titbits....
1987 - Chris Antley at Belmont became the first jockey to win 9 races in 1 day.
 
Good morning. Have a nice day.
Lt Gen Raj Kadyan

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