On this day, 12 Apr...
1606 - England adopts Union Jack as its flag. (It is formed by combining the red and white crosses of St George, St Andrew, and St Patrick and retaining the blue ground of the flag of St Andrew).
1633 - Galileo Galilei's second trial before the Inquisition began. At its conclusion, his belief that the Earth was not the center of the Universe was pronounced heretical.
1799 - The first US patent for a comb-cutting machine was issued to Phineas Pratt of Connecticut. (Previous manufacturing of combs in the U.S. began with the first commercial-scale comb factory by Enoch Noyes of West Newbury in1759, who made combs from flattened animal horns. The first U.S. made ivory comb was made in 1789 by Andrew Lord, who cut the plate and teeth with a handsaw).
1833 - The first U.S. patent for a fireproof safe was issued to Charles A. Gaylor of New York City, as a “fire-proof iron chest.” He made it from two chests, one within the other, with a space between to “inclose air of any non-conductor of heat.” Gaylor called his product the Salamander Safe, after the mythical salamander, an animal having the power to endure fire without harm.
1888 - A French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Albert Nobel, inventor of dynamite, calling him “a merchant of death.” It was actually Albert's brother, Ludwig Nobel, who had just died. However, shocked by the newspaper's report, Albert Nobel began to seek a change in public opinion, which led to his decision to establish the Nobel Prizes.
1892 - The first U.S. patent for a portable typewriter, the Blickensderfer, was issued to George Blickensderfer of Stamford, Connecticut.
1896 - Stamasia Portrisi became 1st woman to win a marathon.
1913 - Gandhiji in Indian Opinion draws attention to new Immigration Bill's failure to fulfill terms of Provisional Settlement of 1911. Kasturba decides to join Passive Resistance struggle.
1955 - The Salk vaccine against polio was announced to work, and be “safe, effective and potent”.
1957 - In Bonn, leading German physicists ceased all work connected with nuclear weapons.
1961 - Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. His spacecraft, Vostok 1, had radio, television and life-support equipment to relay information on his condition. The flight was automated. Gagarin's controls were locked to prevent him from taking control of the ship, although a key in a sealed envelope was provided in case of an emergency. After E-Entry, Gagarin ejected and made a planned descent with his own parachute. However, for many years the Soviet Union denied this because the flight would not have been recognized for various FAI world records unless the pilot had accompanied his craft to a landing. (Gagarin died in a plane crash 7 years later).
1988 - Harvard University patents genetically engineered mouse.
1992 - The 350-tonne Buddha statue salvaged from the Hussain Sagar where it had sunk in 1990.
1994 - The first Internet spamming programme was used by an attorney in Arizona. It flooded Usenet message board readers with a notice about his law firm. The reaction from the online community was vigorously critical, condemning such a form of advertising. Thousands of recipients complained, but a new, burgeoning business of unsolicited mass Internet advertising had been spawned. (The term "spam" was coined from a sketch in the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" BBC television show in which a waitress offered a menu full of variations of spam to an unwilling patron).
Born
1621 - Guru Teg Bahadur Singh, Sikh Guru.
1917 - Mulvantrai Himatlal Mankad better known as Vinoo Mankad, cricketer, India's great all-rounder.
RIP
2006 - Dr. Rajkumar, Kannada language film actor/singer.
2009 – Shakti Samanta, film director.
You may have known...
In the assembly elections held in Nov/Dec 2014, of the total 87 seats, PDP won 28, the BJP won 25 with the National Conference 15 and the Congress won 12 with the remaining seven seats going to others. The PDP and the BJP formed the government.
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