Today’s Motto: ‘Don’t be afraid to give up the good, to go for the Best’

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

On this day,  Apr. 26……..

1654 – Jews prosecuted and expelled from Brazil.  Jews had moved in under Dutch rule in eary 17th century from Spain and Portugal,  As of today they for 9th largest settlers in Brazil, countimng to 1,07.000 as per 2010 census.

1721 – The smallpox vaccination was 1st administrated. (Lady Mary Wortley Montegu had returned to England following a stay in Turkey with her ambassador husband. She had learned of a procedure to inoculate against smallpox and began a campaign to have the procedure established).

1828 – Yunan’s independence movement from Turkey rule , gets  Russain support.

1882 – The photophone was demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter.

1882 – Black American inventor, W.B. Purvis was issued a patent for a “Bag Fastener”. It was designed to permit packages, especially those wrapped in paper, to be “instantly sealed or bound up without the use of cord or its equivalent.”

1892 – The ironing board was patented.

1929 – British fliers make a record nonstop 4,130-mile trip from London to India. This was the first non-stop flight from England to India.

1928 – Madame Tussaud’s waxwork exhibition opened in London. Tussaud (Marie Grosholtz) born in Strausborg)  was a French artist, known for Vax structures and museums . There are 24 Tussaud musems world over. (pics credit-Wikipedia)  

1986 – In Pripyat, Ukraine ( then in USSR), one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in the world’s worst civil nuclear catastrophe. The cause was an experiment that went wrong. It was not announced until 28 Apr 1986. Thirty-one people, mostly firemen, were killed immediately after the explosion. By 1998 10,000 Russian “liquidators” involved in the cleanup had died and thousands more became invalids. It was later estimated that the released radioactivity was 200 times the combined bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ukraine says the health of millions of its people have been affected by the disaster.

1993 – Boeing 737  crashes in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, killing 60 passengers.

1995 – SAARC decides to launch South Asia Preferential Trade Area (SAPTA).

2008 – PM Manmohan Singh inaugurated the 390 MW Dulhasti Hydro Power project in Jammu & Kashmir.

2019 – “No religion” tops survey of American religious identity for the first time at 23.1% edging out Catholics 23.0% and evangelicals 22.5%, in long-running General Social Survey.

2023 – Brazilian Portuguese-language Michaelis dictionary adds “pelé” as a new adjective to its online edition, meaning “exceptional, incomparable, unique”.

Born….

1900 – Charles Richter, seismologist, who developed the Richter Scale for measuring the amplitude of earthquakes (pic credit-www.seismosoc.org).

1953 – Moushumi Chatterjee, legendary Bengal and Bollywood actor. Known for roles in films like Angoor, Anuraag, Manzil, Balika Badhu, Roti Kapada aur Makaan, Ghar Ek Mandir, Kachche Dhaage, Piku etc. She got Filmfare awards twice,  Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and Bengal Film Journalists’ Award and Genie award. (pic credit-tv9.com)

RIP…. 1920 – Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan. Although self-taught, he was one of India’s greatest mathematical geniuses. (While Ramanujan was in hospital in England, his Cambridge professor, G. H. Hardy, visited and remarked that he had taken taxi number 1729, a singularly unexceptional number. Ramanujan immediately responded that this number was actually quite remarkable: it is the smallest integer that can be represented in two ways by the sum of two cubes: 1729=13+123=93+103).

1987 – Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi of the famous Shankar-Jaikishan duo, who gave memorable music from 1949 till 1971 when Jaikishan passed away. Shankar continued giving music under the same S-J banner. Due composed music for films Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai,  Zindagi, Hariyali Aur Rasta, Sanjh Aur Sawera, Basant Bahar, Mere Hazoor etc. They won 9 Folmfsre awards for Best Music. Were also hounoured with Pada Shri and a stamp issued in their name in 1968. (pic credit-Facebook).

You may have known….

About 12,000 different types of bacteria live in a human mouth. Some are harmless and protect us from infection. Others are harmful causing tooth decay and gum disease.

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