Motto for Today: ‘One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.’

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

On this day, Oct. 31….

1876 – Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), over 200,000 killed.

1778 – The first British patent for a mortise lock was issued to Robert Barron. He devised a double-acting tumbler system lock with greater security than the single acting tumbler lock used until that time. (Without knowing it, Barron reinvented the ancient Egyptian lock which had gravity tumbler pins. In the Barron lock, each of several levers fall by gravity into corresponding slots on the bolt, thus preventing the bolt from being moved until a key raises all the levers to exactly the right level. Levers raised too high move into a slot above them in the bolt, also preventing the bolt from being moved).

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 casualties at pedestrian road crossings. At that time there was less than 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. Other things were tried but nothing had the visual impact of the broad white and black stripes across the road at a zebra crossing.

1956 – An airplane landed at the South Pole for the first time. When Navy Admiral George J. Dufek stepped off the Que Sera Sera, an LC-47 transport plane, he 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.

1962 – Krishna Menon, Defence Minister, resigns due to attack by China.

1984 – Indira Gandhi, 66, India’s four-time prime minister, was gunned down by two members of her personal security guard as she walked from her home to her office in New Delhi. She died after four hours of emergency surgery. Of the two assassins, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, one was gunned down and the other was captured. (One may call it a premonition, because a day earlier while in Orissa, Indira Gandhi had said, ““I am alive today, I may not be there tomorrow . . . I do not care whether I live or die . . . I have lived a long life and I am proud that I spent the whole of my life in the service of my people . . . I shall continue to serve till my last breath and when I die, every drop of my blood will strengthen India and keep a united India alive.”)

1984 – Rajiv Gandhi sworn in as Prime Minister by Gyani Zail Singh, President of India, at New Delhi. (He held this office till December 1, 1989).

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.

2000 – Chhattisgarh, the 26th State of Indian Union, comes into existence with the swearing in of its Governor Dinesh Nandan Sahay and Chief Minister Ajit Jogi.

2000 – The Income Tax Department ‘indicts’ five cricketers – Kapil Dev, Ajay Jadeja, Manoj Prabhakar, Nikhil Chopra and Ajay Sharma – for tax evasion and concealment of income earned through ‘dubious sources’.

2003 – The U.S. Food and Drug administration released a summary of a draft report concluding that cloned farm animals and their offspring pose little scientific risk to the food supply.

2011 – The world population reaches 7 billion inhabitants according to the United Nations.

2018- In landmark verdict, Pakistani Supreme Court acquits Christian woman of blasphemy against the prophet Mohammed after eight years on death row.

2018 – World’s biggest statue, the Statue of Unity at 182m is unveiled of Indian independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat.

Born….

1875 – Vallabhbhai Zaverbhai Patel, ‘Iron man of India’. He was also the country’s first Deputy Prime Minister. (His father had served in the army of the Rani of Jhansi against Britishers).

1895 – C.N. Nayudu, first Indian cricket Test captain.

1927 – Narindar Singh Kapani, Indian-American physicist who is widely acknowledged as the father of fibre optics. He coined the term fibre optics for the technology transmitting light through fine glass strands in devices from endoscopy to high-capacity telephone lines that has changed the medical, communications and business worlds. While growing up in Dehradun in northern India, a teacher informed him that light only travelled in a straight line. He took this as a challenge and made the study of light his life work, initially at Imperial College, London. On 2 Jan 1954, Nature published his report of successfully transmitting images through fibre optical bundles. The following year he went to the U.S. to teach. He holds over 100 patents.

1943 – G Madhavan Nair, scientist.

RIP….VB Patel

1975 – Sachin Dev Burman, famous music director.

You may have known….

Due to earth’s gravity, it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.

 

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