On this day, 20 Jun...
712 – Arabs Muhammad of Bin Qasim (Kasim), attacked on Sindh and captured it, defeating and killing Hindu King Dahir at Rawar.
1756 - A group of British soldiers along with Havel were imprisoned by some rebels in a suffocating cell that gained notoriety as the "Black Hole of Calcutta." Most of them died.
1791 - King Louis XVI caught trying to escape French Revolution.
1840 - Samuel F.B. Morse received a patent for telegraphy signals. (The International Morse Code, a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment, is named after him).
1858 - Gwalior fort was captured by British troops and the first Indian Sepoy Mutiny officially came to an end.
1873 - Young Men Christian Association of India was established in Calcutta.
1899 - Black American inventor Wesley Johnson has issued a patent for a "Velocipede". Although conventional in appearance in a side view, the innovation claimed was to use two wheels separated by four to six inches in the front fork, and two wheels in similar fashion at the back. The patent claimed this gives better stability and safety, especially for those first learning to balance and ride a bicycle, the timid, elderly or the invalid. Further, it said, corners could be turned on slippery ground with better stability.
1921 - At the Imperial Conference in London, V.S. Srinivasa Sastri puts forward a case for the granting of full citizenship rights to Indians in South Africa and other British colonies.
1926 - A wireless phone for autos was demonstrated in Berlin, Germany, by Herr Schaetzle.
1967 - Boxer Muhammad Ali convicted of refusing induction into armed services.
1979 - 32 solar panels installed on the White House roof, were dedicated by President Carter He stated, “In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy.” That was not to be. While the roof was being resurfaced in 1986, the President, Ronald Reagan, with one of the worst environmental records of any president, had them removed and sent to warehouse storage. In the same year, he slashed the research and development budget for renewable energy and eliminated tax breaks for wind turbines and solar projects
1994 - Anti-Pakistan slogans rent the air in Jammu & Kashmir against the killing of Qazi Nissar Ahmed, Mirwaiz of South Kashmir and a famous religious Kashmiri leader who was gunned down by Pak-aided terrorists.
1996 - Govt. of India declares at Geneva conference on 'Global Ban On Nuclear Testing' that it won't sign the CTBT. The CTBT essentially bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, be it for military or civilian purposes. The treaty was signed by 71 countries, except India. (The history of the CTBT goes back to March 1st, 1954 when America tested a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb in Namu Atoll, an island in the Pacific Ocean. By exceeding the estimated outcome and causing a large fallout beyond that of the restricted testing area, this test increased the fallout of dangerous radioactive materials. Official calculations confirmed that 28 American and 236 residents of the neighboring Marshall Islands had been contaminated by radioactive emissions).
2002 - An agreement was signed to establish a seawater desalination and heating plant - using atomic reactors - at the coastal city of Yingkou, China. It is designed to address severe water shortages in China.
Born
1869 - Laxmanrao Kirloskar, great industrialist, social reformer, patriot, and founder of Kirloskar Industry.
1952 - Vikram Seth, poet.
RIP
1987 - Dr. Salim Ali, internationally renowned expert of birds.
1997 - Basu Bhattacharya, film-maker.
2007 - Anita Guha, actor.
Titbits
1895 - 1st female Ph.D. from an American University, earned by Caroline Willard Baldwin (in Science) at Cornell University.
1909 - 1st balloon honeymoon (Roger Burham & Eleanor Waring).
You may have known...
Astronauts get pretty severe motion sickness.
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