Kushal
Konwar was a
“Satyagrahi”, born on 21 March 1905, in Chaodang
Chariali, Ghiladhari Mouza, Golaghat, Assam, India. During the last stages of the Quit India
Movement in 1942–1943, he was the only martyr in India’s war for Independence
to be hanged.
Every year on March 20, World
Storytelling Day celebrates the art of oral storytelling. It’s also a day
for people around the globe to listen and tell stories in as many languages as
possible.
Each year World Storytelling Day
has a theme around which the storytellers tell their stories. The storytellers
are free to choose their stories, but most of them try to connect to the
theme.
History of World Storytelling
Day: World Storytelling Day started out as a national day for storytelling
in Sweden around 1991. The day was called 'Alla berättares dag,' which
translates to All Storytellers Day.
In 1997, storytellers in
Australia coordinated a five-week long celebration of story. The day became
known as the International Day of Oral Narrators. Around this time, Mexico and
other Latin American countries were celebrating their own National Day of Storytellers.
In 2002, Scandinavians created their own storytelling web-network called
Ratatosk.
The new network helped the
national day for storytelling spread from Sweden to Norway, Denmark, Finland,
and Estonia. In 2003, the idea continued to spread to other countries including
Canada. The event became known as World Storytelling Day. Today, storytelling
events occur on every continent except Antarctica.
Damal
Krishnaswamy Pattammal, born on 19
March 1919, popularly known as D. K. Pattammal or DKP,
was an Indian Carnatic musician and a playback singer for film songs
in Tamil. Pattammal,
along with her contemporaries M.S. Subbulakshmi and M.L. Vasanthakumari,
are popularly referred to as the female trinity of Carnatic Music. This trio initiated the entry of women
into mainstream Carnatic Music. She has been appreciated all over the world by
Carnatic music lovers.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann CBE FRS who passed away on 18 March 1980, aged 80, in
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom, was a German-British neurologist
who established the Stoke Mandeville Games, the sporting event for people with
disabilities (PWD) that evolved in England into the Paralympic Games. A Jewish
doctor who fled Nazi Germany just before the start of the Second World War,
Guttmann was a founding father of organized physical activities for people with
disabilities.
Allahabad
High Court, officially
known as High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, is the high court based in the
city of Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad, that had jurisdiction over the
Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 17 March 1866,
making it one of the oldest high courts to be established in India. It has two
active High court Seats - the Principal Seat in Allahabad and Bench in Lucknow.
On March 16, 1973, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the current London Bridge, a prestressed concrete box girder structure. The bridge, replacing a 19th-century predecessor that was sold and moved to Arizona, was constructed between 1967 and 1972 while traffic continued, and it serves as a key crossing connecting the City of London with Southwark.
Key Facts About the March 16
Opening:
The date holds significance as
the inauguration of the modern structure that commuters use today, which spans
approximately 269 meters over the Thames.
The Planning Commission of
India, established on March 15, 1950, played a pivotal role in shaping
India's economic trajectory through its Five-Year Plans, with the first plan
launched in 1951. While there isn't a single famous commemorative stamp
dedicated solely to the institution of the Planning Commission
itself, the themes it promoted—industry, agriculture, and development—are
strongly represented in Indian philately from that era.
Observed in the Principality
of Andorra on March 14 annually, Constitution Day is a public holiday that
commemorates the constitutional referendum held on this day in Andorra
on March 14, 1993. The first Constitution of Andorra was approved by 74.2%
of voters in the country on this date and became the country’s first
constitution.
This constitution contained 107
articles and included a universal declaration of human rights. Under this
constitution, all people in Andorra are equal under the law, and it
forbids not only torture and other cruel forms of punishment but also the death
penalty as well.
The Mumbai General Post Office (GPO) has a historic connection to 13 March, as the construction of its iconic heritage building was completed on 13 March 1913.
Key Facts About the Building
William Henry Bragg, who passed away on 12 March 1942, in London, United Kingdom, aged 79,was a British physicist. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Bragg spent 23 years teaching at the University of Adelaide in Australia, before returning to the University of Leeds in 1909. There, working with his son William Lawrence, he invented the X-ray spectrometer in 1912, which allowed them to measure the wavelengths of X-rays. X-rays had only been discovered in 1895, and scientists were not entirely sure that they were electromagnetic waves like light and radio waves. The Braggs showed that they are, and that if you bounce X-rays off solid crystals at very slight angles, then the waves are reflected at different angles, depending on their wavelength, which one could now measure.
The pioneer British scientist in solid-state physics was a joint winner
(with his son Sir Lawrence Bragg) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in
1915 for his research on the determination of crystal structures. The Braggs remain the only father-son Nobel Laureates. He
was knighted in 1920.
Sir Alexander Fleming, who passed away on 11 March 1955, aged 73,
in London, England, was a Scottish physician and microbiologist. He
shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey
and Ernst Chain "for the discovery of penicillin and its
curative effect in various infectious diseases”. This was the first antibiotic
substance discovered. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or
penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens has been described
as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease".
He also discovered the enzyme lysozyme from
his nasal discharge in1922, and along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus
lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus. Fleming was knighted for
his scientific achievements in 1944. In 1999, he was named in Time magazine's
list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. In
2002, he was included in the BBC’s television poll of the 100 Greatest Britons,
and in 2009, he was also voted third “greatest Scot” in an opinion poll
conducted by STV, behind only Robert Burns and William Wallace.
Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar, popularly known by his pen name, Kusumāgraj, who
passed away on 10 March 1999, aged 87, in Shirwade Wani, Nashik, Maharashtra,
India, was a Marathi poet, playwright, novelist and short story
writer, who wrote of freedom, justice and emancipation of the deprived.
In a career spanning five decades starting in India's
pre-independence era, he wrote 16 volumes of poems, three novels, eight volumes
of short stories, seven volumes of essays, 18 plays and six one-act plays. His
works like the Vishakha (1942), a collection of lyrics,
inspired a generation into the Indian freedom movement, and is today
considered one of the masterpieces of Indian literature.
He was the recipient of the 1974 Sahitya Akademi Award in
Marathi for Natsamrat, Padma Bhushan (1991) and the Jnanapith
Award in 1987.
He also served as the President of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi
Sahitya Sammelan held in Margao in 1964.
Amerigo Vespucci, born on 9 March 1454, in Florence,
Italy, was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the
Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived.
Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age
of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain and then for Portugal.
On March 8, 1618, Johannes
Kepler discovered his Third
Law of Planetary Motion, often called the Law of Harmonies.
This breakthrough provided the mathematical link between a planet's
distance from the Sun and the time it takes to complete an orbit. Kepler
famously described the moment as an "epiphany" after nearly a decade
of gruelling calculations.
Govind Ballabh Pant, who passed away on 7 March 1961, aged 73, in New Delhi, was an Indian independence activist and
politician who was the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Alongside Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, Pant was a key figure in
the Indian independence movement and later a pivotal figure in the Indian
government. He was one of the foremost political leaders of Uttar Pradesh (then
known as United Provinces) and a key player in the successful movement to
establish Hindi as the official language of Indian Union.
Today, several Indian hospitals, educational institutions and
foundations bear his name. Pant received India's highest civilian honour,
the Bharat Ratna, in 1957.
National Frozen Food Day is observed annually on March 6th to celebrate the
convenience, innovation, and nutritional value of frozen foods. Established by
President Ronald Reagan in 1984, the day honours the development of modern
freezing techniques. It is a day to highlight how frozen foods help reduce food
waste and provide easy, healthy meal options.
Bijayananda Patnaik, commonly known as Biju Patnaik, born in Cuttack on 5 March 1916,
was an Indian politician, aeronautical engineer, navigator, industrialist,
pilot and freedom fighter. He served as the 3rd Chief Minister of the State of
Odisha from 1990 to 1995 and from 1961 to 1963.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, born on 3 March 1839, was an Indian pioneer industrialist
who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. Named the
greatest philanthropist of the century by several polls and ranking lists, he
also established the city of Jamshedpur. Jamshedji Tata is regarded as the
legendary "Father of Indian Industry". He was so influential in the
world of industry that Jawaharlal Nehru referred to Tata as a One-Man Planning
Commission. "When you have to give the lead in action, in ideas – a lead
which does not fit in with the very climate of opinion – that is true courage,
physical or mental or spiritual, call it what you like, and it is this type of
courage and vision that Jamshedji Tata showed. It is right that we should
honour his memory and remember him as one of the big founders of modern
India." —Jawaharlal Nehru. Tata, who in his early life was a merchant,
went on to change the business world of India through his many ventures within
the cotton and pig iron industry, and is known as one of the most important builders
of the modern Indian economy. Out of his many achievements, Tata is
particularly notable for the Tata Iron and Steel Works company in Jamshedpur. Tata
was ranked first in the "Hurun Philanthropists of the Century" (2021)
by total donations of nearly $102.4 billion with the start of his key
endowments way back in 1892.
Concorde's maiden flight occurred on March 2, 1969, marking the first time the iconic supersonic airliner took to the skies. The flight was a collaborative triumph of the Anglo-French partnership between the United Kingdom and France.
Key Details of the First Flight
Edwin Herbert Land, who passed away on 1 March 1991, aged 81, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.
Land received the President Medal
of Freedom in 1963, the IRI Medal in 1965, the Perkin Medal in 1974, the
Harold Pender Award in1979, and the National Medal of Technology in 1988.
He was also renowned outside of his home country, being a member of
England's Royal Photographic Society, Royal Institution, and Royal
Society (receiving Fellowship of the latter).
Kushal Konwar was a “Satyagrahi”, born on 21 March 1905, in Chaodang Chariali, Ghiladhari Mouza, Golaghat, Assam, India. During the last...
