Today in History @ 16 Aug.

Famous birth anniversaries

a. Indian poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (b. 1904). She was the first woman Satyagrahi to court arrest in Nagpur and was jailed twice for her involvement in protests against the British rule in 1923 and 1942. She was a member of the legislative assembly of Central provinces.

She authored a number of popular works in Hindi poetry. Her most famous composition is “Jhansi Ki Rani”, an emotionally charged poem describing the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai. The poem is one of the most recited and sung poems in Hindi literature. An emotionally charged description of the life of the queen of Jhansi and her participation in the 1857 revolution, it is often taught in schools in India. This and her other poems, “Jallianwala Bagh mein Vasant”, “Veeron Ka Kaisa Ho Basant”, “Rakhi Ki Chunauti, and Vida”, openly talk about the freedom movement. They are said to have inspired great numbers of Indian youth to participate in the Indian Freedom Movement.?

b. 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.

c. 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.

d. 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.

e. Indian neurochemist and glycobiologist Padma Bhushan Bimal Kumar Bachawat (b. 1925). His areas of research included ketone bodies, amino acids and metabolism. Among many awards, the prestigious ones are S S Bhatnagar award of 1962.?

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

g. 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.

h. 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”.

i. Nainital born doctor, surgeon and suffragist Elsie Inglis (b. 1864). In 1892, she obtained the Triple Qualification, becoming a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.?

j. Indian film director David Dhawan (b. 1955).

k. Indian actor Saif Ali Khan (b. 1970).

l. Indian actor director Mahesh Manjerekar (b. 1958).

m. American singer, songwriter, and actress Madonna Louise Ciccone (b. 1958). She is often referred as “Queen of Pop”.

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 many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family, Jacob Bernoulli (d. 1705). He is known for his numerous contributions to calculus, and along with his brother Johann, was one of the founders of the calculus of variations. He also discovered the fundamental mathematical constant e. However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers.

c. 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".

d. 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".

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

f. 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.

g. British scientist and astronomer Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (d. 1920), KCB, FRS. Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen, he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer also is remembered for being the founder and first editor of the influential journal “Nature”.?

h. American chemist, physicist and engineer Irving Langmuir (d. 1957). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry. He investigated the properties of adsorbed films and the nature of electric discharges in high vacuum and in certain gases at low pressures. His work on filaments in gases led directly to the invention of the gasfilled incandescent lamp and to the discovery of atomic hydrogen. He later used the latter in the development of the atomic hydrogen welding process. He was the first to observe the very stable adsorbed monatomic films on tungsten and platinum filaments, and was able, after experiments with oil films on water, to formulate a general theory of adsorbed films.??

Other notable events

a. 1858 Britain's Queen Victoria telegraphed US President James Buchanan for 1st time by transatlantic telegraph cable, he replies ""it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle."

b. 1896 Gold first discovered in Klondike, found at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada by George Carmack.

c. 1934 US explorer William Beebe descended 3,028' (923 m) in Bathysphere

d. 1969 V.V. Giri is elected the fourth President of India

e. 1988 IBM introduced software for Artificial Intelligence

f. 2008 Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set new world record of 9.69 seconds to win the coveted 100m gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics

g. 2008 American swimmer Michael Phelps won his 7th of 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics when he takes the 100m butterfly in Olympic record 50.58; beat Milorad ?avi? of Serbia by 0.01s.