May 18 : A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary, an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.

On this day, 18 May...

1787 - Glass was engraved for the first time in Toulouse, France.

1912 – The first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne is released in Mumbai. This visionary, Ramchandra Gopal Torne, better known by contemporaries as Dadasaheb Torne, was responsible for making the very first movie in India. The film, named Shree Pundalik, was approximately a year before Dadasaheb Phalke released his full-length film, Raja Harishchandra. Despite the controversy, as to which film should be considered as the first Indian film in history, Dadasaheb Torne’s contribution is remembered with great respect and admiration. (“Half of the Mumbai population has seen Shree Pundalik, the remaining half should also see it.” - quoted from an advertisement of Shree Pundalik, in the second week of the film’s release).

1923 - The first patent application on a rotary-dial telephone was submitted in France by Antoine Barney.

1932 - Hindu-Muslim riots take place in Bombay. 150 are killed or injured. Jinnah - the permanent president of the Muslim League, began to spread the rumors that Muslim minority was in danger under Hindu majority and actively propagated the theory of two separate nations.

1967 - The first legalization of human artificial insemination in the U.S. was enacted by the state of Oklahoma and signed this day by the governor. It came a century after the first trials. The first recorded human impregnation by means of artificial insemination in the U.S. was made in 1866.

1974 - Under project Smiling Buddha, India successfully detonates its first nuclear weapon near Pokhran in Rajasthan (Thar Desert) at 8:05 am, becoming the sixth nation to do so.

1988 - The ten-day Golden Temple siege at Amritsar ends with the surrender of 46 militant Sikhs.

2009 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE is defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.

2014 - Voters in Switzerland reject a proposal to raise the minimum wage to about $25 per hour; if passed, the rate would have been the highest minimum wage in Europe.

2015 - U.S. President Barack Obama bans the use of certain military equipment by police in the wake of recent deaths of unarmed black men by police officers; the move is meant to help communities see police as protectors rather than as an 'occupying force'.

Born

1872 - Bertrand Russell, the great philosopher, mathematician, author, and Chairman of the Indian League.

1933 – H. D. Deve Gowda, the Indian farmer, and politician, 11th Prime Minister of India.

RIP

2012 – Jai Gurudev, Indian religious leader, (born 1895).

You may have known...

Geese have serrated tongues.