On this day - Lt Gen Raj Kadyan

Life is in constant conflict between love and ego. love always wants to say sorry , while ego always wants to hear it.

On this day 10 Dec....

1478 - The anonymous Arte dell'Abbaco printed in Italy. It is the first dated printed book on arithmetic. The 124-page text dealt with commercial applications of arithmetic and the book teaches the four main operations, with numerous examples, and the concept of fractions (but not the as yet unknown decimals).

1799 - A second legal definition of the metre was made by the French National Assembly to be 3 feet and 11.296 lines of the toise of Paris. The metric system was made compulsory by law in France. The toise of Paris refered to an old unit of measurement, defined by the length of a specific standard metal bar held at Paris. (1 toise = 6 French feet, 1 ft = 12 in, 1 inch = 12 lines.) This  was replaced by a third legal definition made on 28 Sep 1889 by the Paris General Conference, when a new International metre bar was made of a platinum-iridium alloy. The 4th legal definition on 14 Oct 1960 used the wavelength of a spectral line of krypton.

1801 - Robert Hare presented to the Chemical Society of Philadelphia his paper, Memoir of the Supply and Application of the Blow-Pipe. It presented the twenty-year-old scientist's discovery relating to the intense production of heat with his oxyhydrogen blow-pipe, progenitor of the welding torch.

1901 - At the first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, the king of Sweden distributed the Nobel Prizes, in accordance with the will of inventor Alfred Nobel. (Also see RIP below).

1932 - The Indian Military Academy (IMA) was formally inaugurated by Field Marshal Sir Philip W Chetwode, and was christened as "The Pioneers". The crowning event was delivered in the hall, now named after him, and in the address to the trainees, he enunciated three principles: 'the safety, honour, and welfare of your country comes first, always and everytime', which were to guide the future officers of the Indian Army. A passage from this address has come to acquire immortality and has been adopted as the credo of the Academy. (In the full address form the priorities are - country first, the men you command next and you yourself last, always and every time).

1936 - Edward VIII signs Instrument of Abdication, giving up British throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing a divorce of her second. Despite  opposition on religious, legal, political and moral grounds, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her whether his governments approved or not. It caused a constitutional crisis in the British Empire that finally led to his abdication. He remains the only British monarch to have voluntarily renounced the throne since the Anglo-Saxon period.

1954 -  To determine if a pilot could eject from an airplane at supersonic speed and live, Lt. Col. John Paul Stapp, a flight surgeon, rode a rocket sled to 632 mph. The Sonic Wind was the rocket powered sled. The sled's rocket motors generated 40,000 lbs. of thrust and he reached a speed of 632 mph in five seconds. At the end of the ride Stapp was stopped in 1.25 seconds which subjected him to 40 Gs. It was the equivalent of hitting a brick wall in a car traveling at 120 mph. Data from 29 increasingly harsh rocket-sled rides during the 1950s proved invaluable in the design of improved helmets, arm and leg restraints, better aircraft seats, and stronger safety harnesses.

1998 - Indian Professor Amartya Sen is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to welfare economics.

1999 - Pranab Mukherjee and Jaipal Reddy are chosen outstanding parliamentarians for 1997 and 1998 respectively.

2012 - Google begins selling US$99 laptops.

Born....

1878 - Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, great social reformer, ardent patriot, incisive thinker and eminent literateur. He was the first Indian Governor General of independent India and popularly known as 'Rajaji'.

RIP....

1896 - Alfred Bernhard Nobel, a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer.
He was the inventor of dynamite. He held 355 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. His fortune was used posthumously to institute the Nobel Prizes.

2001 - Ashok Kumar, film actor.

Good morning. Have a nice day.
Lt Gen Raj Kadyan