Today’s Motto: ‘Always forgive your enemies; nothing irritates them so much’

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

On this day,  Jan. 23……..

638 – Start of the Islamic Calendar (pic credit-iStock).

1556 – Shaanxi Earthquake – deadliest ever recorded; kills 830,000 in Shensi Province of China.

1897 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in United States history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

1909 – 1st radio rescue at sea.

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

1957 – V. K. Krishna Menon begins the longest ever speech at the UN on Kashmir- 8 hours over 2 days. He was India’s Defence Minister from 1957 to 1962 (during India-China War)

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.

1964 – The first animal to human heart transplant was made. Dr. James Hardy at the University of Mississippi transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee into the chest of Boyd Rush (age 68) in a last-ditch effort to save the man’s life because no human was heart available. The newly-transplanted heart beat on its own; but it was too small to maintain independent circulation and Rush died after 90 minutes. Hardy had to endure some severe criticism. (This was three years before Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant). Hardy also made the first human lung transplant in 1963 and a double-lung transplant that left the heart in place in 1987.

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. The original corps motto of the Ordnance corps was “Usa Tela Tananti” found in the arms of the board of Ordnance. This was translated to mean “To the thunder his arms”. The corps song titled “Ayudh Corps Mahan” was introduced for the first time in 4th re-union of the Army Ordnance Corps.

1978 – Climbers Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first to summit Everest without the aid of oxygen. Messner described his feelings upon reaching the top like this: “I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits.”

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 – Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, and subsequently murdered (pic credit-Wikipedia)

2012 – European Union agrees to embargo Iranian oil in protest against Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme.

2013 – US armed forces overturns 1994 ban on women serving in combat.

2023 – Japan on the brink of not being able to function as a society, because of its falling birth rate and high life expectancy, says Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in speech to Japanese parliament.

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 and fought against the British with his Azad Hind Fauj in the World War II.

1915 – Kamal Nayan Bajaj, famous  Gandhian and industrialist.

1927 – Balasaheb Thackrey…famous cartoonist and Shiv Sena founder and chief.

1947 – Ramesh Sippy, legendary Bollywood director who produced/directed films like Sita Aur Gita,Andaaz,  Sagar, Sholey, Shaaan, Shimla Mirchi , Shakti etc.

RIP….

1975 – Omeo Kumar Das, one of the great patriots of Assam, passed away at the age of 81. He selflessly worked for the tea plantation workers and made efforts to get them better living standards. He translated Gandhi Ji’s autobiography “My Experiments with Truth” in Assamese language.

You may have known….

When paper was made of pulped cotton, European paper mills used urine to break down the

 raw material.                                                                                               

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