The Great Indian Peninsula Railway opened in 1853

The Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) Railway, came into existence on 16 April 1853, when the first passenger train on the Indian Sub-continent steamed off from Bori Bunder (Bombay) to Thane, a modest stretch of only 34 kms. It was operated by three locomotives, named Sahib, Sultan and Sindh, and had thirteen carriages. Central Railway was carved out of erstwhile GIP Railway on November 5, 1951.

Madame Tussaud's Death Anniversary

Madame Tussaud, (full name Anna Maria “Marie” Tussaud), who passed away on 16 April 1889, aged 88, in London, was the French-born sculptor and founder of Madame Tussaud’s museum of wax figures, in central London.

Her early life was spent first in Bern and then in Paris, where she learned the art of wax modelling from Philippe Curtius, whose two celebrated wax museums she inherited upon his death in 1794. From 1780 until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, she served as art tutor at Versailles to Louis XVI’S sister, Madame Élisabeth, and she was later imprisoned as a royalist. According to her memoirs, during the Reign of Terror she had the gruesome responsibility of making death masks from heads—frequently those of her friends—freshly severed by the guillotine.

Her marriage in 1795 to François Tussaud, an engineer from Mâcon, was not a success; and in 1802 she took her two sons and her collection of wax models to England. She toured the British Isles for 33 years before finally establishing a permanent home in Baker Street, London, where she worked until eight years before her death. (In 1884 Madame Tussaud’s moved to the Marylebone Road, London.)

Madame Tussaud’s museum is topical as well as historical and includes both the famous and the infamous. Notorious characters and the relics of famous crimes are segregated in the “Chamber of Horrors,” a name coined jokingly by a contributor to Punch in 1845. Many of the original models made by Marie Tussaud of her great contemporaries, including Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott, are still preserved. 

Nandalal Bose's Death Anniversary

Nandalal Bose, who passed away on 16 April 1966, aged 83, in Santiniketan, West Bengal, was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism.

A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his "Indian style" of painting. He became the principal of Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan in 1921. He was influenced by the Tagore family and the murals of Ajanta; his classic works include paintings of scenes from Indian mythologies, women, and village life.

Today, many critics consider his paintings among India's most important modern paintings. In 1976, the Archaeological Survey of India, Department of Culture, Government of India, declared his works among the "nine artists" whose work, "not being antiquities", were to be henceforth considered "to be art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value".^[

He was given the work of illustrating the constitution of India.

Wilbur Wright's Birth Anniversary

 

Wilbur Wright, born on 16 April 1867, in Millville, Indiana, USA, was an American aviator.

Wilbur Wright, in collaboration with his younger brother Orville Wright, changed the course of human history with the invention of the first successful airplane. Together, the Wright brothers' tenacity, curiosity, and mechanical ingenuity pioneered the dawn of aviation.

Born in a family that valued education and intellectual pursuits, Wilbur, along with his brother, exhibited a fascination with flight from an early age. Their intrigue was initially sparked by a toy helicopter their father gifted them, which later evolved into a lifelong dedication to understanding and conquering the principles of flight. They studied the flight patterns of birds and conducted initial experiments with kites and gliders, leading to the development of their unique three-axis control system—a critical innovation that forms the foundation of modern aircraft control.

On December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the brothers achieved their landmark feat of the first powered, controlled, and sustained human flight, with Orville piloting the first flight and Wilbur piloting the fourth and final flight of the day, covering 852 feet in 59 seconds. Their subsequent models showed even greater promise and the Wright brothers' Flyer became the prototype for all subsequent airplanes.

Despite his untimely death from typhoid fever in 1912, Wilbur's legacy, along with that of his brother Orville, remains monumental.

 

Charlie Chaplin's Birth Anniversary

 

Charlie Chaplin, (original name Charles Spencer Chaplin), born on 16 April 1889, in Walworth, London, was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer.

Charlie Chaplin was born into poverty in England and started performing on the stage from a young age. After moving to America, he became a film actor and famous worldwide for his tramp character in silent films.

Chaplin perfected his Tramp persona in Keystone films before founding United Artists Studio in Hollywood in 1919 with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. The Studio went on to produce such famous Chaplin silent films as "The Kid" (1921), "The Gold Rush" (1925) and "Modern Times" (1936). All films that Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in.

Chaplin was one of only a handful of silent film makers who continued to make successful films in the sound era. "The Great Dictator" (1940) parodying Adolf Hitler and "Limelight" (1952) featuring fellow silent era star, Buster Keaton are regarded amongst his best.

After having become a controversial figure for his Communist political views and marriages to much younger women, Chaplin left America while under investigation by the FBI and in 1953 settled in Switzerland.

Pope Benedict XVI's Birth Anniversary

  

Benedict XVI, (original name Joseph Alois Ratzinger), born on 16 April 1927, in Marktl am Inn, Germany, was the bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013. Prior to his election as Pope, Benedict led a distinguished career as a theologian and as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His papacy faced several challenges, including decline of vocations and church attendance, divisive debates concerning the direction of the church, and the effects of the scandal beginning in the late 1990s surrounding the church’s handling of numerous cases of sexual abuse by priests. Citing health issues, in 2013, Benedict XVI became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.