January 27 : If we want different results, we must change the way we do things.

On this day, 27 Jan....

1880 - Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp he invented on 21 Oct 1879. Edison’s invention of the light bulb had a major impact on the electronics and computer industries.

1888 - National Geographic Society was established.

1921- In his address ' Geometry and Expansion ' Albert Einstein, applying certain results of the relativity theory, suggested the possibility of measuring the universe. It startled the audience.

1926 - Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of a true television system in London. Baird's invention was a pictorial transmission machine he called a “televisor,”. Baird's first television programme showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.(The BBC started the first public broadcasts in London in 1936. Regular television broadcasts began in the United States in 1939).

1943 - 1st US air attack on Germany.

1944 - After 872 days of the siege of Leningrad by German forces allowing no food or medical supplies to enter which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, The Siege was finally broken.

1948 - 1st tape recorder sold.

1964 - E.I. duPont de Nemours Co. introduced Corfam. This hydrocarbon-based, synthetic substitute for leather was flexible, with tiny pores, for uses such as shoes, handbags, belts and suitcases. Shoes put on sale with Corfam uppers were supposed to give consumers the look, feel and durability of leather. DuPont predicted that by 1984, 25% of America's shoes would be made of Corfam. But synthetic leather was snubbed by customers in droves. After being seven years on the market, the product failed.

1970 - James M. Schlatter received a patent for “Peptide Sweetening Agents”, an invention which eventually led to the marketing of aspartame under the name NutraSweet.

1973 - The Vietnam war formally ended when ministers from the United States, North and South Vietnam and the Viet Cong signed an agreement in Paris.

1987 - P. T. Usha nominated the Asian Athlete of 1986 by the US Sports Academy.

2010 - Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, unveils a new invention, a tablet PC called the iPad, at a press conference in San Francisco.

Born

1922 - Ajit (Khan), actor.

1926 - General Arunkumar Vaidya, former Army Chief.

1967 - Bobby Deol, actor.

1969 - Vikram Bhatt, Screenwriter.

RIP

1972 - V. S. Sarvate (Tatya Saheb), great revolutionary writer.

2009 - R Venkataraman, lawyer, eighth President of India.

Titbits

1984 - Michael Jackson receives serious burns to his head after his hair caught light while singing his hit "Billie Jean" for a Pepsi Cola commercial in Los Angeles when the special effects went wrong.

1985 - Coca Cola starts distribution in the Soviet Union 12 years after Pepsi .

You may have known....

In Cameroon and on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo there are three deadly lakes: Nyos, Monoun and Kivu. All three are crater lakes that sit above volcanic earth. Magma below the surface releases carbon dioxide into the lakes, resulting in a deep, carbon dioxide-rich layer right above the lakebed. That carbon dioxide can be released in an explosion, asphyxiating any passersby.