Today in history @ 20 April

Famous birthdays today

a Eminent Odia novelist and short story writer, Gopinath Mohanty (b. 1914). He won the first ever Sahitya Akademi Award (1955). He won the highest literary award of the country, Jnanpith (1974). He dominated the Oriya literature for over four decades as a colossus and was hailed as one of the greatest prose writers in India.

b Austrian born German dictator Adolf Hitler (1889). His?worldview?revolved around two concepts: territorial expansion and?racial supremacy.

c American businessman and co-founder of Yahoo, David Robert Filo (b. 1966).

d French physician, Philippe Pinel (b. 1745). He is most famous for his humane treatment of the mentally ill, as well as his contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.?He is often considered the "father of modern psychiatry."

e French couturier and the most fashionable?dress?designer of pre-World War I, Paul Poiret (b. 1879). He is famous for introducing hobble skirt to the world.

f Swiss physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Karl Alexander Müller (b. 1927). He was awarded the same in 1987 for his work on superconductivity in ceramic materials.

Famous death anniversaries

a Indian flute player and composer Pandit Pannalal Ghosh (d. 1960). He was the first to transform a tiny folk instrument to a novel bamboo flute (32 inches long with 7 holes) suitable for playing traditional Indian classical music and also to uplift its stature, bringing it at par with other classical music instruments.

b Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano (d. 1932). He was the founder of symbolic logic and his interests centred on the foundations of mathematics and on the development of a formal logical language.

c German physicist and inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun (d. 1918). He shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with?Guglielmo Marconi?"for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy". In 1897, he built the first?cathode-ray tube?(CRT) and cathode ray tube?oscilloscope. It is still mostly called the "Braun tube" in German-speaking countries.

d German-born?British?physician and?biophysicist,?Bernard Katz (d. 2003). He is famous for his work on?nerve?physiology; specifically, for his work on?synaptic transmission?at the?nerve-muscle junction. He shared the?Nobel Prize in medicine?in 1970.

e German?chemist,?geoscientist,?physicist, and?biologist Franz Karl Archad (d. 1821). His principal discovery was the production of?sugar?from?sugar beets.

f Indian?Urdu?poet, lyricist and songwriter, Shakeel Badayuni (d. 1970). He is best remembered for most of his songs with music director Naushad.?

Famous events of the day

a In 1862, the first pasteurization test was completed by Frenchmen?Louis Pasteur?and Claude Bernard.

b In 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie?isolated the radioactive compound radium chloride.

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