March 23 : Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.

On this day, 23 Mar...

1794 - Josiah G. Pierson patented a rivet machine.

1836 - Minting coins. The coin press was invented by Franklin Beale, who produced the first batch of coins for the U.S. Mint.

1839 - 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] (Boston's Morning Post).

1840 - Englishman John William Draper took the first successful photo of the Moon. He made a daguerreotype, a precursor of the modern photograph.

1857 - The world's first passenger safety elevator went into service in a store at 488 Broadway and Broome Street in New York City. The safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis was powered by steam through a series of shafts and belts.

1858 - Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patented the first plans for a cable car system.

1861 - London's first tramcars began operating. An American, George Francis Train had obtained permission for a route about a mile in length running along Bayswater Road between Marble Arch and Notting Hill. The trams were horse-drawn carriages with steel wheels that ran on steel tracks laid in the street, thus making them easier to haul than on an uneven road surface. A pair of horses could pull them with twenty seated passengers and another twelve standing. Unfortunately, the flange of the rails which came above the road surface caused a hazard or damaged other vehicles catching their wheels in the track. Politically influential local residents also objected to the noise. The project was terminated by the authorities within six months.

1869 - Electric heaters. In 1869, an electrical resistance heater was patented by Leigh Burton.

1875 - The first sounding of the Mariana Trench was made by the British survey ship, H.M.S. Challenger, discovering part of the deepest known region of Earth’s oceans. {The Mariana Trench lies in the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Mariana Islands, near Guam. Accurate measurements from the surface remain difficult, but in 2010, NOAA used sound pulses to record a 36,070-ft (10,994 m) depth in the Challenger Deep at its southern end}.

1903 - The Wright brothers filed a U.S. patent for their method of controlling an airplane in flight. After three years experimenting with gliders, they were now building their powered Wright Flyer, which made its historic flight at the end of the year, on 17 Dec 1903. The patent was not issued until 22 May 1906. (Their claim was not the invention of the flying machine, but described the important new flight control technique of wing-warping).

1912 - The Dixie Cup was invented. {In the years leading up to the 20th century everyone drank at the public water barrel, well, pump, or spigot with a communal tin cup or common dipper. This sharing by both healthy and sick alike often was the source for spreading germs and disease. (The history of the Dixie Cup began when Lawrence Luellen first became interested in an individual paper drinking cup in 1907. The object was to dispense a pure drink of water in a new, clean, and the individual drinking cup)}.

1913 - Indian Muslim Conference passes a resolution demanding immediate self-government.

1940 - All-India-Moslem League calls for a Moslem homeland.

1942 - Second World War was turning against the British and they needed the help of the Indians. So Prime Minister Churchill sent a delegation under Sir Stafford Cripps (Cripps Mission) to hold talks with the Indian leaders on the future of the subcontinent in the UK, which could not take place because of the non-cooperation movement and they left after a fortnight. They submitted their report in April 1942 which was rejected by the Congress and Muslim League.

1942 - Japanese forces occupy Rangoon, the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.

1950 - The U.N. World Meteorological Organisation was established.

1983 - Dr. Barney C. Clark, the first recipient of a permanent artificial heart, died at the University of Utah's Medical Centre after 112 days with the device. Doctors at the University of Utah Medical Centre said one day later that the death resulted from a massive circulatory collapse "resulting from a multitude of causes."

1986 - The first women's company of Central Reserve Police Force camp was raised in Durgapur.

1994 - Last day of Test cricket for Kapil Dev.

Born

1910 - Dr. Ram Manohar Hiralal Lohia was also known as "Dauntless Dr. Lohia", freedom fighter and socialist leader. He had founded Praja Socialist Party.

1968 - Atul Satish Wassan, cricketer.

1976 – Smriti Malhotra-Irani, politician.

RIP

1931 - Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru, and Sukhdev, great freedom fighters and revolutionaries, were hanged for assassination of Saunders, Assistant Superintendent of Police in the Central Jail at Lahore. Bhagat Singh and his associates showed no signs of any fear as they kissed the noose, chanting "Inquilab Zindabad".

1938 – Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, cricketer.

2000 - Udham Singh, hockey legend.

2010 – Kanu Sanyal. He was an Indian communist politician. In 1967, he was one of the main leaders of the Naxalbari uprising. He committed suicide by hanging at his residence on 23 March 2010.

You may have known...

The U.S. tops the list as the country with the highest calorie intake of any in the world. The average calorie consumption per day in the U.S. is 3,770 calories, followed by Austria with 3,760, and Italy with 3,660. (Average Indian takes around 2300 kilocalories).