Ruchi Ram Sahni's Birth Anniversary

 

Alagappa Chettiar's Death Anniversary

 

Charles Freer Andrews' Death Anniversary

 

Kurt Cobain's Death Anniversary

  

Kurt Cobain, who passed away on 5 April 1994, Seattle, Washington, aged 27, was an American rock musician who rose to fame as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter for the seminal grunge band Nirvana.

Cobain had a generally happy childhood until his parents divorced when he was nine years old. After that event, he was frequently troubled and angry, and his emotional pain became a subject of, and catalyst for, much of his later music. As a teenager, he moved between various relatives’ houses, stayed with friends’ parents, and occasionally slept under bridges while he began to use drugs and take part in petty vandalism as forms of teenage rebellion. Cobain was musically inclined from an early age, and in the mid-1980s he began to play with members of the local “sludge rock” band the Melvins (who would themselves go on to earn a measure of national fame in the 1990s). In 1985 he created a homemade tape of some songs with the drummer of the Melvins that later caught the attention of local bassist Krist Novoselic. Cobain and Novoselic formed Nirvana in 1987 and thereafter recruited a series of drummers to record demo tapes with them and play small shows throughout the Northwest.

One of the group’s demo tapes found its way to Jonathan Poneman of the Seattle independent record label Sub Pop, which signed the band to produce its first single, “Love Buzz”, in 1988 and its first album, Bleach, in 1989. The album had a unique (and soon-to-be signature) sound that mixed the rawness of punk rock with pop hooks, and the group soon became a target of major record labels. With new drummer Dave Grohl (who joined the band in 1990) Nirvana released its major-label debut, Nevermind (1991), which featured the hit single “Smells like Teen Spirit”; it became the first alternative-rock album to achieve widespread popularity with a mainstream audience. Nevermind catapulted Nirvana to worldwide fame, and Cobain came to be hailed as the voice of his generation, a title that he was never comfortable with.

In 1992 Cobain married Courtney Love, then the leader of the band Hole, and the couple had a daughter that same year. The following year Nirvana released its final studio album, In Utero, in which Cobain railed against his fame. Cobain had long suffered from depression and chronic stomach pain. He treated his issues with drugs: Cobain was a frequent user of heroin in the years after Nirvana’s breakthrough, and he took a variety of painkillers in an attempt to numb his constant stomach agony. In March 1994 he was hospitalized in Rome after overdosing and slipping into a coma in what was later characterized as a failed suicide attempt. One month later he snuck out of a Los Angeles-area drug treatment centre and returned to his Seattle home, where he shot and killed himself.

Cobain’s death marked, in many ways, the end of the brief grunge movement and was a signature event for many music fans of Generation X. He remained an icon of the era after his death and was the subject of a number of posthumous works, including the book Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain (2001) by Charles R. Cross and the documentaries Kurt & Courtney (1998) and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). In addition, a collection of his journals was published in 2002. In 2014 Nirvana was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Pandita Ramabai Saraswati's Death Anniversary

 

Jagjivan Ram's Birth Anniversary

 

Gregory Peck's Birth Anniversary

Gregory Peck, born on 5 April1916, in La Jolla, California, United States of America, was a tall imposing American actor with a deep, mellow voice, best known for conveying characters of honesty and integrity.

A pharmacist’s son, Peck attended military school and San Diego State College before enrolling as a premed student at the University of California at Berkeley. There he developed a taste for acting, and upon graduation he headed to New York, where he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and supported himself as an usher at Radio City Music Hall and as a concession barker at the 1939 World’s Fair. He made his Broadway debut in The Morning Star (1942), the first of three consecutive flops in which he appeared, although critics liked Peck’s performances.

Invited to Hollywood, Peck made his first film appearance as a Russian guerrilla fighter in Days of Glory (1944). Because of an earlier spinal injury, he was unable to serve in World War II. This circumstance enabled him to emerge as one of the most popular leading men of the 1940s. He earned his first Academy Award nomination for his performance as an idealistic missionary priest in The Keys of the Kingdom  (1944), and three years later he received a second Oscar nomination for his interpretation of a journalist who poses as a Jew in order to expose and anti-Semitism in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947).Peck’s other notable films from this decade include The Valley of Decision (1945), Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), Duel in the Sun (1946), The Yearling (1946), and Yellow Sky (1948).

Although Peck worked with most of the major Hollywood directors of the day, including Hitchcock, King Vidor, William Wellman, William Wyler, Vincente Minnelli, and Lewis Milestone, he did some of his finest work for Henry King. In King’s Twelve O’Clock High (1949), The Gunfighter (1950), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Bravados (1958), and Beloved Infidel (1959), Peck portrayed outwardly strong and authoritative individuals whose inner demons and character flaws threaten to destroy them. He was finally honoured with an Academy Award for his performance as the ethical and compassionate Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). His subsequent screen roles included an anguished father in the popular horror film The Omen (1976), the titular American general in MacArthur  (1977), and a rare villainous turn as Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978). Although Peck continued to work into the early 1990s (at which time he announced that he was largely retired), his final films are mostly forgettable.

Throughout his career, Peck received the most praise for his portrayals of stoical men motivated by a quest for decency and justice; he was less successful in performances demanding a broad emotional range, such as his interpretation of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1956), in which critics felt he failed to convey the compulsive qualities of one of American literature’s most complex characters. Nevertheless, he was an ingratiating performer, fully capable in roles that required him to be the moral centre of a film. Peck was also widely admired and respected as one of the motion picture industry’s most cooperative and least egotistical stars. Outside of his film work, he was tirelessly active in civic, charitable, and political causes. He served as chairman of the American Cancer Society and of the trustee board of the American Film Institute (which he cofounded), and for three years he was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

 

National Maritime Day (India)

National Maritime Day, celebrated annually in India on April 5, honours those who spend months at sea, contributing to India's trade. It also commemorates the inaugural voyage of the first Indian-owned ship. The National Maritime Day offers an opportunity to emphasise the role of the maritime industry in India's economic growth and highlights the sacrifice of seafarers who not only run the trade but also partake in national security by deterring pirate attacks.

History and Significance

The National Maritime Day was first celebrated in 1964 by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways. This year will mark the 61st National Maritime Day. The day not only celebrates India’s maritime might, but also commemorates the inaugural voyage of the first Indian-owned ship, SS Loyalty from Mumbai to London on April 5, 1919.

The maiden voyage of SS Loyalty symbolised India’s aspiration of becoming a key stakeholder in the maritime sector. The SS Loyalty also put a dent in the monopoly of the British shipping companies.

The day serves as a platform to highlight issues affecting the maritime industry such as ocean pollution, lack of global cooperation to ensure safe voyages, and improving working conditions for ship and port workers.

How it is celebrated

The National Maritime Day celebrations are held across the country, but major ports such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Kandla, and Visakhapatnam see special government-supported events such as seminars, medical camps, and blood donation drives.

The National Maritime Day celebrations include observing the Merchant Navy Flag Day and the Wreath Laying Ceremony to honour the sailors who lost their lives in the First and Second world wars.

On National Maritime Day, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways presents the Sagar Samman Awards to those who display “exceptional and outstanding all-round and leadership” and “outstanding bravery” in the maritime sector.

 

 

 

 

Bell Bottoms Day

 

Bell Bottoms Day, which is celebrated on April 5, commemorates the fashion of the 1970s. Bell bottoms are also known as flares. These are a style of trousers and jeans that become wider from the knees to the ankles resembling the shape of a bell. Back in the day, bell bottoms were made from denim, satin polyester, or bright cotton. They were immensely popular among teenagers as they signified an outlandish fashion style.

First European Discovery of Easter Island in 1722

Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen (1659-1729) made the first European discovery of Easter Island on Easter Day, April 5, 1722, and ended 1,400 years of isolation on the island. Triangular shaped, Easter Island or Rapa Nui as it is known locally, is located 2,300 miles (3,700 km) west of the Chilean coast in the South Pacific Ocean. Over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the nearest populated center, Rapa Nui is one of the most isolated settlements in the world. The island is small, only 60 square miles (155 sq km), and is barren except for the hardy grasses that grow there, but is noted because of the large mysterious statues or moai that dot the island. Although the discovery of this island was not considered important at the time, it has since attracted the attention of archaeologists and scientists from all over the world.

The monumental sculptures of Easter Island or Rapa Nui represent one of the world's great sculptural traditions and have inspired awe ever since. Around 800 of these sculptures or moai were made from 1100 AD when the island was settled until 1600 AD. Most remain in Rapa Nui with a few examples existing in institutions such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Carved out of local basalt rock moai represent the faces of ancestral chiefs, built to offer the local population protection for this life and the next. They usually range in height from 2 - 10 meters but one unfinished moai stands 20 meters high. They were usually situated on a ahu (stone platform) facing outwards.