January 28 : When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

On this day, 28 Jan....

1807 - London's Pall Mall became the first street of any city to be illuminated by gaslight.

1846 - Battle of Aliwal, Brits beat Sikhs in Punjab.

1878 - The first commercial telephone exchange in the U.S. was installed at New Haven, Connecticut, and served 21 subscribers connected by a single strand of iron wire. For the first six weeks, the exchange was not operated at night. Instead of "hello," the first experimental shout was "Ahoy, ahoy."

1887 - Work begins on the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

1896 - The first speeding fine was handed out to a British motorist Walter Arnold for being caught doing 8 mph in a 2 mph built up zone, and was fined one shilling. That speed limit had been in force since 1865. (The speed limit was raised to 20 mph in 1903, and to 30 mph within built up areas in 1934, which it has remained ever since).

1911 - The famous Hope diamond, once worn by Marie Antoinette, was bought this night for over $300,000 by Ned McLean, son of John McLean. Mrs. McLean wore it as a head ornament, guarded by a former Secret Service man who in turn was guarded by two private detectives. Walnut-sized and exquisitely blue in color, the 44.5-carat stone stems from India. Its owners included Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and a London banker named Hope. A sinister history of ill luck, madness, and violent death clings to the unique gem.

1933 - The name Pakistan is coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.

1935 - Iceland became the first country to introduce legalized abortion.

1960 - The first wire photograph transmitted by radio waves bounced off the moon was sent between Hawaii and Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Navy, using 84-ft diameter parabolic antennas.

1998 - Andy Nelson and navigator Bertrand Piccard, in the balloon Breitling Orbiter II set the world record for endurance at nine days and 17 hours - or, to be exact, 233 hours and 55 minutes.

2010 - Five murderers of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh hanged: Lieutenant Colonel Syed Faruq Rahman, Lieutenant Colonel Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Major AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, Major Bazlul Huda and Lieutenant Colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed.

Born

1865 - Lala Lajpat Rai 'Punjab Kesari', great valiant freedom fighter, social reformer, humanitarian and lawyer.

1900 - General (Later Field Marshall) K.M. Cariappa, first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

1925 - Raja Ramanna, scientist and fourth President of Indian Atomic Energy Commission.

1986 - Shruti Haasan, film actress.

RIP

1984 - Sohrab Meherwanji Modi, famous drama and film producer, director and actor.

Titbits

1887 - In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes are reported, being 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick.

You may have known....

As the climate changes, glaciers are retreating and contributing to rising sea levels. It turns out that one particular glacier range is contributing a whopping 10 percent of all the meltwater in the world. That honour belongs to the Canadian Arctic, which lost a volume equivalent to 75 percent of Lake Erie between 2004 and 2009.