February 26 : A true leader answers not to the trumpet calls of self-promotion, but to the hushed whispers of necessity.

On this day, 26 Feb....

1616 - Galileo, who defended the Copernican theory that the earth revolved around the sun, had remained in conflict with the church. Eventually, with seven of the ten cardinals presiding at his trial he was found guilty. Upon signing a formal recantation, the Pope allowed him to live under house arrest. He remained in his villa at Florence till he died on 8 Jan 1841.

1797 - Bank of England issues first £1-note.

1878 - The French scientist, Sédillot corresponded with Littré concerning certain micro-organisms, and a suitable word to name them. Littré replies in a letter on this date that he chooses the word "microbe," rather than "microbial," even though it was coined from two Greek words that together would mean "short-lived" rather than "small life."

1895 - Michael Joseph Owens of Ohio patented a glass-blowing machine. He later became a co-founder of the glass industry. The world's first fully the automatic machine he invented was a revolution in glass bottle making.

1907 - U.S. Congress raised their own salaries to $7,500.

1910 - Gandhi supports the African People's Organisations resolution to declare the day of arrival of the Prince of Wales in South Africa as a day of mourning in protest against the South Africa Acts on the disenfranchisement of Indians, Coloureds, and Africans in the upcoming Union of South Africa.

1935 - The feasibility of radar (Radio Detection And Ranging) was demonstrated to Air Ministry officials at Daventry, England, by Robert Watson-Watt, a Scottish physicist. Earlier, while working on methods of using radio-wave detection to locate thunderstorms in order to provide warnings to airmen, he realized that it could be used to track enemy aircraft for air defense. The test showed that an RAF Heyford bomber flying in the main beam of a BBC short-wave radio transmitter gave back-reflected signals to the ground on three occasions that the aircraft passed overhead. By 1939, the outbreak of WW II, the military installed a chain of radar stations along the east and south coasts of England to prevent a German invasion.

1936 - Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche's "Volkswagen".

1975 - Bhanubhai Shah established the first kite museum of India called 'Shankar Kendra' in Ahmedabad.

2014 - NASA announces that its Kepler space telescope has discovered 715 planets in other solar systems, bringing the instrument's new-planet tally to 961; four of the latest discoveries are thought to have an orbit favorable to habitation, but the distance of these planets makes exploration impossible with current technology.

Born

1852 - John Harvey Kellogg, American physician and health-food pioneer whose development of dry breakfast cereals was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry.

1922 - Manmohan Krishna, actor.

1936 - Manmohan Desai, film producer and director.

RIP

1966 - Vinayak Damodar Savarkar "Veer", great revolutionary freedom fighter, social reformer, politician, and writer. He was known as the first person to flee by swimming from Port Blair Jail and was associated with right-wing Hindu Mahasabha, started the Abhinav Bharat as a secret society of revolutionary terrorists.

2018 - Sridevi body arrives in Mumbai, Death On 25 February 2018 in Dubai.

You may have known....

The moon looks bigger on the horizon. There is an optical illusion which makes the moon appear to be larger the lower it is in the sky. The apparent magnification is not caused by our atmosphere. It is more of a mind trick. When the moon is closer to the horizon, it is closer to objects like buildings and trees which therefore in comparison makes the moon look bigger. However, there are times when the moon really is bigger. During its elliptical orbit, the moon has times when it is actually slightly closer to the Earth (Perigee) or further from the Earth (apogee). This happens about once a month, do the moon’s orbit around the Earth. Usually is not noticeable to the eye. However, when a full moon occurs at the same time of the moon’s perigee it can be called a Supermoon and appears 12-14% bigger than normal!

Economic news

E-way bill provisions may be relaxed for the E-com companies and export from an ICD.

The CBI has registered a case against Simbholi Sugars chairman Gurmit Singh in connection with an alleged bank loan fraud of Rs 970 million.

70% IGST refund stuck due to discrepancies in the information furnished by the exporter to GSTN in filing the GSTR-1 or GSTR 3B and shilling bill filed with custom.

ED seeks info on Nirav Modi, choksi’s overseas assets.

Tax-Free Bonds , offering tax-free return and lower volatility compared to debt mutual fund, turn attractive again.

Idea-Vodafone Merger unit will invest Rs 60000 crore in infrastructure to meet surging demand for data.

CBDT has asked its field officers to step up efforts and put more focus on better performing zones, to meet the Rs 10.05 trillion target.