Stephen Hector Taylor Smith Death Anniversary

 

 

Stephen Hector Taylor-Smith, who passed away on 15 February 1951, was a pioneering Indian aerospace engineer who developed techniques in delivering mail by rocket.

Unlike Friedrich Schmiedl, whom the Austrian Authorities banned from further experimenting, Smith was encouraged in his experiments by Indian Officials. In the ten-year span of his experiments (1934–1944), Smith made some 270 launches, including at least 80 rocket mail flights.

First Teddy Bear in 1903

 

The teddy bear was inspired by a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman depicting American president Theodore Roosevelt—commonly called "Teddy"—having compassion for a bear at the end of an unsuccessful hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Morris Michtom saw the drawing and created a tiny plush bear cub which he sent to Roosevelt. After receiving permission to use Roosevelt's name, Michtom put a plush bear in the shop window on 15 February 1903 with a sign "Teddy's bear." After the creation of the bear the sale of the bears was so brisk that in 1907 Michtom created the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan Death Anniversary

 

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, who passed away on 15 February 1948, was an Indian poet. Chauhan 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 Lakshi 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 (British India) 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. 

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan wrote in the Khariboli dialect of Hindi, in a simple, clear style. Apart from heroic poems, she also wrote poems for children. She wrote some short stories based on the life of the middle class.

Galileo Galilei Birth Anniversary

Galileo Galilei, born on 15 February 1564,  was an Italian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made essential contributions to the sciences of astronomy, motion and strength of the material and several developments of scientific methods.

If we talk about his discoveries, Galileo was the first person to report telescopic observations of the mountains on the moon, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus. He calculated the law of free fall, conceived by the principle of inertia; he also determined the parabolic trajectory of projectiles and promoted the relativity of motion.

Galileo’s significant contributions were observational data, which he obtained with a telescope he made himself. He was the first astrophysicist to scan the spaces with a light-magnifying instrument; he is also referred to as the father of observational astronomy.

Telescopic Discoveries of Galileo

Galileo was not only the first inventor of the reflecting telescope, but he also significantly enhanced its power. What set Galileo apart was that he quickly figured out how to improve the instrument.

Galileo was the first to observe the rough, cratered surface of the moon; Jupiter’s four largest satellites named the Galilean moons; dark spots on the sun’s surface, known as sunspots; and the phases of the phases of Venus with his unprecedentedly powerful telescopes.

Earth’s Orbit

Soon after the invention of the telescope in the Netherlands, Galileo created his own from improvised spectacle lenses. He learned how to make unprecedentedly powerful telescopes, which he used to study the solar phases of the planet Venus. He also concluded that the sun is the central point of the solar system, not the Earth, as was formerly assumed, after noticing and studying the similar phases of Venus and the moon. Such discoveries of Galileo took the world of inventions to another level.

The Law of Falling Bodies

The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle taught that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, but Galileo wasn’t convinced. By climbing to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Galileo demonstrated this theory by dropping items of various weights off the side, which states that every object will fall at an equal rate. All items hit the ground simultaneously. This law of falling bodies was his crucial contribution in the field of motion.

The Principle of Pendulum

The law of the pendulum was discovered by Galileo Galilei, which made the young scientist famous. Galileo observed that no matter how big the swings are, the time it will take for each swing to complete will be the same because the kinetic energy left in the pendulum will always be the same; it is just shifted from one direction to the other. This law is eventually used to regulate clocks.

Mirza Ghalib Death Anniversary

 

Mīrzā Asadullāh Khān Ghālib, who passed away on 15 February 1869, was a preeminent Indian poet of his time writing in Persian, equally renowned for poems, letters, and prose pieces in Urdu.

Born into an aristocratic family, Ghālib passed his youth in luxury. Subsequently, he was granted a small pension by the British government but had to struggle against penury and hardships. Recognition finally came in 1850, when he was appointed poet laureate to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II.

Ghālib’s best poems were written in three forms: ghazal (lyric), mas̄navī (moralistic or mystical parable), and qaṣīdah (panegyric). His critics accused him of writing in an obscure and ornamental style of Persian incomprehensible to the masses. His verses affirm God’s omnipotence while questioning the misery of the phenomenal world.

World Anthropology Day

Every year on the third Thursday of February, World Anthropology Day is observed. And it occurs on February 15 this year. The day is designated to honour the untapped and educate the general public about anthropology.

The scientific study of humanity is known as anthropology. It investigates the beginnings and progression of human societies and cultures. Different scientific methodologies are used to examine traits in historical and contemporary communities. The study also aids in our understanding of how the world functions, the reasons behind our behaviour, and how our environments are influenced by us.

World Anthropology Day was established in 2015 by the American Anthropological Association (A.A.A.).

World Hippo Day

World Hippo Day is observed every year on February 15 to remember the hippopotamus which are reportedly declining in population. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed them as "vulnerable species" in 2006.

World Hippo Day aims to celebrate and value these mud-loving mammals, in the hope that they will be around for many years to come. It also focuses to raise awareness about the illegal trading of these animals as hunting and poaching of hippos, both for their meat and ivory teeth, is a major threat to the species.

These days there are only two types, says reports stating them to be - the bog-standard hippopotamus and smaller pygmy hippopotamus, but a few other extinct species could be found across Europe and in Madagascar as little as 1,000 years ago. Hippos are most common in countries such as Zambia and Tanzania.