Today in history @ 27 Feb

Today in history @ 27 Feb

Birth anniversaries

a. American poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 1807). He was a commanding figure in the cultural life of nineteenth-century America. He was a traveler, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which charged his imagination with untried themes and made him ambitious for success.

His poems were popular throughout the English-speaking world, and they were widely translated, making him the most famous American of his day. His admirers included Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, and Charles Baudelaire.

b. Eminent Indian writer (who wrote in Odia and English), Padma Bhushan Manoj Das (b. 1934). He was a philosopher, a thinker-writer whose works can be defined as quest for finding the eternal truth in everyday circumstances. His deeper quest, led him to mysticism and he was an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry, since 1963 where he taught English Literature and the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

In 1971, his research in the archives of London and Edinburgh brought to light some of the little-known facts of India’s freedom struggle in the first decade of the twentieth century led by Sri Aurobindo. At different times he contributed regular personal columns to India’s leading English newspapers, The Thought, The Times of India, The Hindustan Times and The Hindu and major Odia dailies. During 1981-1985, he was an author-consultant to the Ministry of Education, Government of the Republic of Singapore, visiting the island nation twice a year for taking classes of a hundred teachers. He was the leader of the Indian delegation of writers to China (1999).

c. British-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (b. 1932). She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early on in her youth and kept the world hooked on till her last day.

She had her own fragrance brands: Passion (in 1987) and White Diamonds (in 1991). According to biographers, she earned more money through the fragrance collection than during her entire acting career. Taylor was considered a fashion icon both for her film costumes and personal style. She collected jewelry through her life, and owned several notable pieces. After her death, her jewelry and fashion collections were auctioned by Christie's to benefit her AIDS foundation, ETAF. The jewelry sold for a record-breaking sum of $156.8 million, and the clothes and accessories for a further $5.5 million.

d. American author and 1962 Nobel Prize winner for literature, John Steinbeck (b. 1902).

e. American mathematician, economist, and writer Irving Fisher (b. 1867). He displayed signs of his mathematical intellect and invention during his early days, and started to financially support his family giving tuitions after his father passed away. He was awarded the first Ph.D. in economics by Yale. He is best known for his work in the field of capital theory and modern monetary theory. Some concepts named after him include the Fisher equation, the Fisher hypothesis, the international Fisher effect, the Fisher separation theorem and Fisher market.

f. Our own film producer, actor, director and screenwriter Prakash Jha (b. 1952).

Death anniversaries

a. Freedom fighter Chandrasekhar Azad (d. 1931). He was the chief strategist of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He is famous for the Kakori train robbery in 1925 and the killing of the assistant superintendent Saunders in 1928.

He had vowed that he would never be arrested by the British police and kept his promise by shooting himself in the head with his last bullet. He is remembered for being a freedom fighter who was successful in instilling fear among the Britishers and is a legend in our nation but its strange to note that he attained so much all within 24 years of age.

b. Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (d. 1936). Known primarily for his work in classical conditioning, he won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904, becoming the first Russian Nobel laureate.

c. French fashion designer and businessman Louis Vuitton (d. 1892) founder of the fashion brand in the same name. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes, watches, jewelry, accessories, sunglasses and books. LV is one of the world's leading international fashion houses; it sells its products through standalone boutiques, lease departments in high-end department stores, and through the e-commerce section of its website.

In 19th-century Europe, box-making and packing was a highly respectable and urbane craft. Louis struggled as an apprentice to some big box makers in Paris but finally starting his own shop after developing a certain expertise. Outside the shop a sign hung reading "Securely packs the most fragile objects. Specializing in packing fashions”. Vuitton was hired as personal box maker and packer to the Empress of France, Spanish countess Eugenie de Montijo. She provided Vuitton with a gateway to other elite and royal clients who provided him with work for the rest of his career.

d. Russian composer, doctor and chemist Alexander Borodin (d. 1887). In the science world, he is famous for his works on aldehydes, aldols and amines.

e. Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, politician, and the wife of Vladimir Lenin, Nadezhda Konstantinovna "Nadya" Krupskaya (d. 1939). She was, as Trotsky wrote in her epitaph, 'the loyal companion of Lenin, an irreproachable revolutionist and one of the most tragic figures in revolutionary history'.

f. English writer, gardener and diarist John Evelyn (d. 1706). His Diary, which he began writing at the age of 11, is considered an invaluable source of information on the social, cultural, religious, and political life of 17th-century England.

Other important events

a. 1984 Carl Lewis set a new world record indoor by jumping 8.675 mtrs