Today in history @ 16 Aug

Famous birth anniversaries

a. Canadian filmmaker, director, producer, screenwriter, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and deep-sea explorer James Cameroon (b. 1954). Needless to say, he is famously associated with Terminator, Aliens, Abyss and Titanic.

b. German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer Henry Charles Bukowski (b. 1920). His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over 60 books.

c. British archaeologist, military officer, diplomat, and writer Thomas Edward Lawrence (b. 1888). The breadth and variety of his activities and associations in Middle East, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as “Lawrence of Arabia”—a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.

d. Guyanese international cricketer and former captain of the West Indies cricket team S Chanderpaul (b. 1974).

e. German physician, physiologist, philosopher and professor Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (b. 1832). He is considered as the founding figures of modern psychology. Wundt, who noted psychology as a science apart from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist.

f. Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century Saint John Bosco (b. 1815). While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the “Salesian Preventive System”.

Famous death anniversaries

a. Famous Indian saint Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (d. 1886). He is chiefly known for his high attainments in approaching God along many different paths. One of his most noteworthy devotees was Vivekananda who eventually made his way to America where he helped to form a bridge between Eastern and Western thought and culture.

b. One of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century Elvis Aaron Presley (d. 1977). He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".

c. Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, Nusrat fateh Ali Khan (d. 1997). He possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. Extending the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family, Khan is widely credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences. He is popularly known as "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", meaning "The King of Kings of Qawwali".

d. American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton (d. 1888). He is famous for being the founder of Coca-Cola.

e. German chemist Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (d. 1889). He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff. The newer design burner made by Bunsen and Desaga, which provided a very hot and clean flame, is now called simply the "Bunsen burner", a common laboratory equipment

Other notable events

a. In 2008 Usain Bolt sets a new 100 metres world record of 9.69 seconds at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics

b. In 1988,IBM introduces software for artificial intelligence