This Harvey made a dent to the Universe by creating a SMILE !!!

Harvey Ross Ball (July 10, 1921 – April 12, 2001) was an American commercial artist. He is recognized as the earliest known designer of the smiley, which became an enduring and notable international icon. Ball was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. During his time as a student at [Worcester South High School], he became an apprentice to a local sign painter, and later attended Worcester Art Museum School, where he studied fine arts.

Ball was based in Asia and the Pacific during World War II and was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism during the Battle of Okinawa. He served 27 years in the National Guard, retired as a Brigadier General in 1973 and then served six years in the Army Reserves. He retired as a full colonel in 1979. Ball was awarded the Veteran of the Year award from the Worcester Veterans Council in 1999.

After World War II, Ball worked for a local advertising firm until he started his own business, Harvey Ball Advertising, in 1959. His design of the Smiley came about in 1963. The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) had purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale. In an attempt to solve this, Ball was employed in 1963 as a freelance artist, to create a smiley face to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters. In less than ten minutes the smiley face was complete.

The use of the smiley face was part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out 100 smiley pins to employees. The aim was to get employees to smile while using the phone and doing other tasks. The buttons became popular, with orders being taken in lots of 10,000. More than 50 million smiley face buttons had been sold by 1971, and the smiley has been described as an international icon. 

Ball never applied for a trademark or copyright of the smiley and earned just $45 for his work (US $315 in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars). State Mutual, similarly, did not make any money from the design. Telegram & Gazette reported Charles Ball as saying "he was not a money-driven guy, he used to say, 'Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time'".

The phrase "Have a happy day" became associated with the Smiley although it was not part of Ball's original design. Philadelphian brothers Bernard and Murray Spain designed and sold products with the phrase and logo in the early 1970s. They trademarked the combination and later changed the phrase to "Have a nice day", which itself has become a phrase in everyday use in North America.

The Smiley was introduced to France in 1972 as a signal of a good news story in the newspaper France Soir. Frenchman Franklin Loufrani used the image this way and made swift moves to trademark the image. His company now turns over $100 million a year and became embroiled in a copyright dispute with Walmart over the image in the 1990s.

The World Smile Corporation was founded by Ball in 1999. The Corporation licenses Smileys and organizes World Smile Day. World Smile Day raises money for the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation, a non-profit charitable trust that supports children's causes. World Smile Day is held on the first Friday of October each year and is a day dedicated to "good cheer and good works". The catch phrase for the day is "Do an act of kindness - help one person smile".

This maverick MAHATMA in DHOTI revolutionized the conventional system to bring about EQUALITY !!!

The great social reformer Jotirao Phule was bestowed with the unique title of 'Mahatma' on 11 May 1888 by another great social reformer from Mumbai, Rao Bahadur Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar. On completion of 60 years of his age and 40 years of social service fighting for the rights of the 'bahujans', he decided to bestow the title of 'Mahatma' on Jotirao Phule for his dedicated service in the cause of humanity justifying it to be apt for the great work and sacrifice for the downtrodden. He then garlanded Jotirao Phule and declared that ‘we people present here, with swasphurti, are bestowing the title of Mahatma upon Jotirao Phule!’.

Mahatma Jyotirao Phule AKA Jyotiba Phule (11 April 1827 – 28 November 1890) went to local Scottish Mission's High School, which he completed in 1847.  His mother died when he was 9 months old. He was married at the age of 12. He was great activist, thinker, social reformer, writer, philosopher, theologist, scholar, editor and revolutionary from Maharashtra, India in the nineteenth century. Jyotiba Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule were pioneers of women's education in India. His remarkable influence was apparent in fields like education, agriculture, caste system, women and widow upliftment and removal of untouchability. He initiated widow-remarriage and started a home for upper caste widows in 1854, as well as a home for new-born infants to prevent female infanticide.

He is most known for his efforts to educate women and the lower castes as well as the masses. He, after educating his wife, opened the first school for girls in India in August 1848. In September 1873, Jyotirao, along with his followers, formed the Satya Shodhak Samaj (Society of Seekers of Truth) with the main objective of liberating the Bahujans, Shudras and Ati-Shudras and protecting them from exploitation and atrocities. For his fight to attain equal rights for peasants and the lower caste and his contributions to the field of education, he is regarded as one of the most important figures of the Social Reform Movement in Maharashtra. Dhananjay Keer, his biographer, notes him as "the father of Indian social revolution". 

Plant a tree save the world; its ARBOR DAY !!!

Arbor Day (from the Latin arbor, meaning tree) is a holiday in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees. Today, many countries observe a this holiday. Though usually observed in the spring, the date varies, depending on climate and suitable planting season.

 First Arbor Day in the world

The small Spanish village of Villanueva de la Sierra is the town where was held the first Arbor Day around the world, a initiative launched in 1805 by the local priest with the enthusiastic support of the entire population. While Napoleon was ravaging Europe with his ambition in this village in the Sierra de Gata lived a priest, don Ramón Vacas Roxo, which, according to the chronicles, "convinced of the importance of trees for health, hygiene, decoration, nature, environment and customs, decides to plant trees and give a festive air. The festival began on Carnival Tuesday with the ringing of two bells of the church, and the Middle and the Big.

After the Mass, and even coated with church ornaments, don Ramón, accompanied by clergies, teachers and a large number of neighbours, planted the first tree, a poplar, in the place known as Valley of the Ejido. Tree plantations continued by Arroyada and Fuente de la Mora. Afterwards, there was a feast, and did not miss the dance. The party and plantations lasted three days. He drafted a manifesto in defence of the trees that was sent to surrounding towns to spread the love and respect for nature, and also he advised to make tree plantations in their localities.

—Miguel Herrero Uceda, Arbor Day

Van Mahotsav is an annual pan-Indian tree planting festival, occupying a week in the month of July. During this event millions of trees are planted. It was initiated in 1950 by K. M. Munshi, the then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food to create an enthusiasm in the mind of the populace for the conservation of forests and planting of trees. The name Van Mahotsava (the festival of trees) originated in July 1947 after a successful tree-planting drive was undertaken in Delhi, in which national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad and Abdul Kalam Azad participated. Paryawaran Sachetak Samiti, a leading environmental organization conducts mass events & concrete activities on this special day celebration each year. The week was simultaneously celebrated in a number of states in the country.

Arbor day is also celebratd in many countries around the world: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, Canada, Central African Republic, Czech Republic, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Germany, Iran, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States and Venezuela.

Father of ENIAC; The first computer built in 1800 square feet !!!

John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. (April 9, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in computing topics (the Moore School Lectures), founded the first commercial computer company (the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation), and designed the first commercial computer in the U.S., the UNIVAC, which incorporated Eckert's invention of the mercury delay line memory.

Eckert was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a wealthy real estate developer John Eckert and was raised in a large house in Philadelphia's Germantown section. During elementary school, he was driven by chauffeur to William Penn Charter School, and in high school joined the Engineer's Club of Philadelphia and spent afternoons at the electronics laboratory of television inventor Philo Farnsworth in Chestnut Hill. He placed second in the country on the math portion of the College Board examination.

Eckert initially enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to study business at the encouragement of his parents, but in 1937 transferred to Penn's Moore School of Electrical Engineering. In 1940, at age 21, Eckert applied for his first patent, "Light Modulating Methods and Apparatus". At the Moore School, Eckert participated in research on radar timing, made improvements to the speed and precision of the Moore School's differential analyzer, and in 1941 assisted in teaching a summer course in electronics under the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training (ESMWT) offered through the Moore School by the United States Department of War.

Dr. John Mauchly, then chairman of the physics department of nearby Ursinus College, was a student in the summer electronics course, and the following fall secured a teaching position at the Moore School. Mauchly's proposal for building an electronic digital computer using vacuum tubes, many times faster and more accurate than the differential analyzer for computing ballistics tables for artillery, caught the interest of the Moore School's Army liaison, Lieutenant Herman Goldstine, and on April 9, 1943 was formally presented in a meeting at Aberdeen Proving Ground to director Colonel Leslie Simon, Oswald Veblen, and others. 

A contract was awarded for Moore School's construction of the proposed computing machine, which would be named ENIAC, and Eckert was made the project's chief engineer. ENIAC was completed in late 1945 and was unveiled to the public in February, 1946.

Both Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School in March 1946 over a dispute involving assignment of claims on intellectual property developed at the University. In that year, the University of Pennsylvania adopted a new patent policy to protect the intellectual purity of the research it sponsored, which would have required Eckert and Mauchly to assign all their patents to the University had they stayed beyond March.

Eckert and Mauchly's agreement with the University of Pennsylvania was that Eckert and Mauchly retained the patent rights to the ENIAC but the University could license it to the government and non-profit organizations.

In the following months, Eckert and Mauchly started up the Electronic Control Company which built the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC). One of the major advances of this machine, which was used from August 1950, was that data was stored on magnetic tape. The Electronic Control Company soon became the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and it received an order from the National Bureau of Standards to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). He was awarded the Howard N. Potts Medal in 1949. In 1950, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation ran into financial troubles and was acquired by Remington Rand Corporation. The UNIVAC I was finished on December 21, 1950.

In 1968, "For pioneering and continuing contributions in creating, developing, and improving the high-speed electronic digital computer", he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 2002 he was inducted, posthumously, into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Some computer historians—and Eckert himself—believed that the widely-adopted term "von Neumann architecture" should properly be known as the "Eckert Architecture," since the stored-program concept central to the von Neumann architecture had already been developed at the Moore School by the time von Neumann arrived on the scene in 1944-1945.

Eckert's contention that von Neumann improperly took credit for devising the stored program computer architecture was supported by Jean Bartik, one of the original ENIAC programmers. Many others in the field, however, believe that the concept of a stored program predates both of these men, going as far back as Charles Babbage and others.

This Wagon Driver, Doll Maker, a Skilled Craftsman; designed and invented SAFETY ELEVATOR !!!

Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) was an Americanindustrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, and inventor of a safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails. He worked on this device while living in Yonkers, New York in 1852, and had a finished product in 1854. Otis was born in Halifax, Vermont to Stephen Otis, and Phoebe Glynn. He moved away from home at the age of 20, eventually settling in Troy, New York, where he lived for five years employed as a wagon driver. In 1834, he married Susan A. Houghton. They would have two children, Charles and Norton.He designed and built his own gristmill, but did not earn enough money from it, so he converted it into a sawmill, yet still did not attract customers. Now having a second son, he started building wagons and carriages, at which he was fairly skilled. His wife later died, leaving Otis with two sons, one at that time being age 8 and the other still in diapers.

At 34 years old and hoping for a fresh start, he married and moved to Albany, New York. He worked as a doll maker for Otis Tingely. Skilled as a craftsman and tired of working all day to make only twelve toys, he invented and patented a robot turner. It could produce bedsteads four times as fast as could be done manually (about fifty a day). At his leased building, he started designing a safety brake that could stop trains instantly and an automatic bread baking oven. He was put out of business when the stream he was using for a power supply was diverted by the city of Albany to be used for its fresh water supply. At the age of 40, while he was cleaning up the factory, he wondered how he could get all the old debris up to the upper levels of the factory. He had heard of hoisting platforms, but they often broke, and he didn't want to take risks.

He and his sons, who were also tinkerers, designed their own "safety elevator" and tested it successfully. He thought so little of it he neither patented it nor requested a bonus from his superiors for it, nor did he try to sell it. After having made several sales, and after the bedstead factory declined, Otis took the opportunity to make an elevator company out of it, initially called Union Elevator Works and later Otis Brothers & Co.. No orders came to him over the next several months, but soon after, the 1854 New York World's Fair offered a great chance at publicity. At the New York Crystal Palace, Elisha Otis amazed a crowd when he ordered the only rope holding the platform on which he was standing cut.

The rope was severed by an axeman, and the platform fell only a few inches before coming to a halt. After the World's Fair, Otis received continuous orders, doubling each year. He developed different types of engines, like a three-way steam valve engine, which could transition the elevator between up to down and stop it rapidly. In his spare time, he designed and experimented with his old designs of bread-baking ovens and train brakes, and patented a steam plow in 1857, a rotary oven in 1858, and, with Charles, the oscillating steam engine in 1860. Otis contracted diphtheria and died on April 8, 1861 at age 49.

World Health Day !!!

The World Health Day is celebrated every year on April 7th, under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1948, the WHO held the First World Health Assembly. The Assembly decided to celebrate 7th April of each year, with effect from 1950, as the World Health Day. The World Health Day is held to mark WHO's founding, and is seen as an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year. The WHO organizes international, regional and local events on the Day related to a particular theme. Resources provided continue beyond 7 April, that is, the designated day for celebrating the World Health Day.

World Health Day is acknowledged by various governments and non-governmental organizations with interests in public health issues, who also organize activities and highlight their support in media reports, such as through press releases issued in recent years by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Global Health Council.

World Health Day 2014 will spotlight some of the most commonly known vectors – such as mosquitoes, sandflies, bugs, ticks and snails – responsible for transmitting a wide range of parasites and pathogens that can cause many different illnesses. Mosquitoes, for example, transmit malaria - the most deadly vector-borne disease, causing an estimated 660 000 deaths annually worldwide - as well as dengue fever, lymphatic filariasis, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever.

The goal of the World Health Day 2014 campaign is better protection from vector-borne diseases, especially for families living in areas where diseases are transmitted by vectors, and travelers to countries where they pose a health threat. The campaign also advocates for health authorities in countries where vector-borne diseases are a public health problem or emerging threat, to put in place measures to improve surveillance and protection.

Themes of World Health Days

• 2013: Healthy heart beat, Healthy blood pressure
• 2012: Good health adds life to years
• 2011: Anti-microbial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow
• 2010: Urbanization and health: make cities healthier
• 2009: Save lives, Make hospitals safe in emergencies
• 2008: Protecting health from the adverse effects of climate change
• 2007: International health security
• 2006: Working together for health
• 2005: Make every mother and child count
• 2004: Road safety

• 2003: Shape the future of life: healthy environments for children
• 2002: Move for health
• 2001: Mental Health: stop exclusion, dare to care
• 2000: Safe Blood starts with me
• 1999: Active aging makes the difference
• 1998: Safe motherhood
• 1997: Emerging infectious diseases
• 1996: Healthy Cities for better life
• 1995: Global Polio Eradication

SMELLED LIKE A TEEN SPIRIT !!!

He was best known as the lead singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the grunge band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1985 and established it as part of the Seattle music scene, having its debut album Bleach released on the independent record label Sub Pop in 1989.

After signing with major label DGC Records, the band found breakthrough success with"Smells Like Teen Spirit" from its second album Nevermind (1991). Following the success of Nevermind, Nirvana was labeled "the flagship band" of Generation X, and Cobain hailed as "the spokesman of a generation". Cobain, however, was often uncomfortable and frustrated, believing his message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, with his personal issues often subject to media attention. He challenged Nirvana's audience with its final studio album In Utero (1993). It did not match the sales figures of Nevermind but was still a critical and commercial success.

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. The circumstances of his death at age 27 have become a topic of public fascination and debate. Since their debut, Nirvana, with Cobain as a songwriter, has sold over 25 million albums in the US, and over 75 million worldwide.

Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20, 1967, at Grays Harbor Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington, to a waitress, Wendy Elizabeth (née Fradenburg) (born 1948), and an automotive mechanic, Donald Leland Cobain (born 1946). His ancestry included Irish, English, Scottish, and German. Cobain's Irish ancestors migrated from County Tyrone of Northern Ireland in 1875. Researchers have found them to have been shoemakers, originally named Cobane, who came from the village of Inishatieve near Pomeroy, settling in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, and then in Washington.

Cobain began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, he began singing at two years old. At age four, Cobain started playing the piano and singing, writing a song about their trip to a local park. When Cobain was seven years old, his parents divorced. Later in his life, he said the divorce had a profound effect on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically; Cobain became defiant and withdrawn.

Cobain's teenage rebellion quickly became overwhelming for his father, who placed Kurt in the care of family and friends. While living with the born-again Christian family of his friend Jesse Reed, Cobain became a devout Christian and regularly attended church services. Cobain later renounced Christianity, engaging in what would be described as "anti-God" rants. The song "Lithium" is about his experience while living with the Reed family. Religion would remain an important part of Cobain's personal life and beliefs, as he often used Christian imagery in his work and maintained a constant interest in Jainism and Buddhist philosophy. 

The band name Nirvana was taken from the Buddhist concept, which Cobain described as "freedom from pain, suffering and the external world," which paralleled with the punk rock ethic and ideology. Cobain would regard himself as both a Buddhist and a Jain during different points of his life, educating himself about the philosophies through various sources, including through watching late night television documentaries on both subjects.

During his second year in high school, Cobain began living with his mother in Aberdeen.Two weeks prior to graduation, he dropped out of Aberdeen High School upon realizing he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: find employment or leave. After one week, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes. Feeling banished from his own mother's home, Cobain stayed with friends, occasionally sneaking back into his mother's basement. Cobain also claimed during periods of homelessness to have lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River, an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way".

 Kurt and Tobi spent most of their time together as a couple discussing political and philosophical issues. In 1990 they collaborated on a musical project called "Bathtub Is Real", in which both Vail and Cobain sang, played guitar and drums. They recorded their songs on a four-track tape machine that belonged to Vail's father. In Everett True's 2009 book "Nirvana: The Biography" Vail is quoted as saying "(Kurt) would play the songs he was writing, I would play the songs I was writing and we'd record them on my dad's four-track.

 

Teen Spirit was the name of a deodorant Vail wore; Hanna joked that Cobain smelled like it. Cobain, unaware of this, initially interpreted the slogan as having a revolutionary meaning. The slogan inspired the title to the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

This son on a locomotive driver changed the way of commute via road !!!

Karl Friedrich Benz (November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the petrol-powered automobile, and together with Bertha Benz,pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Benz received a patent for his work and all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile. In 1879, his first engine patent was granted to him, and in 1886, Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile. On July 20, 1872, Karl Benz and Bertha Ringer married. They had five children: Eugen (1873), Richard (1874), Clara (1877), Thilde (1882), and Ellen (1890).

Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant was born in Mühlburg, now a borough of Karlsruhe, Baden, which is part of modern Germany, to Josephine Vaillant and a locomotive driver, Johann George Benz, whom she married a few months later.According to German law, the child acquired the Name “Benz” by legal marriage of his parents Benz and Vaillant. When he was two years old, his father was killed in a railway accident, and his name was changed to Karl Friedrich Benz in remembrance of his father. Despite living in near poverty, his mother strove to give him a good education. Benz attended the local Grammar School in Karlsruhe and was a prodigious student. 

 In 1853, at the age of nine he started at the scientifically oriented Lyceum. 

Benz had originally focused his studies on locksmithing, but eventually followed his father’s steps toward locomotive engineering. On September 30, 1860, at age fifteen, he passed the entrance exam for mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, which he subsequently attended. Benz was graduated July 9, 1864 at nineteen. During these years, while riding his bicycle, he started to envision concepts for a vehicle that would eventually become the horseless carriage.

Following his formal education, Benz had seven years of professional training in several companies, but did not fit well in any of them. He then moved to Mannheim towork as a draftsman and designer in a scales factory. In 1868 he went to Pforzheim to work for a bridge building company Gebrüder Benckiser Eisenwerke und Maschinenfabrik. Finally, he went to Vienna for a short period to work at an iron construction company. In 1871, at the age of twenty-seven, Karl Benz joined August Ritter in launching the Iron Foundry and Mechanical Workshop in Mannheim, later renamed Factory for Machines for Sheet-metal Working. 

Despite the business misfortunes, Karl Benz led in the development of new engines in the early factory he and his wife owned. To get more revenues, in 1878 he began to work on new patents. First, he concentrated all his efforts on creating a reliable petrol two-stroke engine. Benz finished his two-stroke engine on December 31, 1878, New Year’s Eve, and was granted a patent for it in 1879.

 Karl Benz showed his real genius, however, through his successive inventions registered while designing what would become the production standard for his two-stroke engine. Benz soon patented the speed regulation system, the ignition using sparks with battery, the spark plug, the carburetor, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator.

Benz’s lifelong hobby brought him to a bicycle repair shop in Mannheim owned by Max Rose and Friedrich Wilhelm Eßlinger. In 1883, the three founded a new company producing industrial machines: Benz & Company Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik, usually referred to as, Benz & Cie. Quickly growing to twenty-five employees, it soon began to produce static gas engines as well. The success of the company gave Benz the opportunity to indulge in his old passion of designing a horseless carriage. Based on his experience with, and fondness for, bicycles, he used similar technology when he created an automobile. 

It featured wire wheels (unlike carriages’ wooden ones) with a four-stroke engine of his own design between the rear wheels, with a very advanced coil ignition and evaporative cooling rather than a radiator. Power was transmitted by means of two roller chains to the rear axle. Karl Benz finished his creation in 1885 and named it the Benz Patent Motorwagen. 

It was the first automobile entirely designed as such to generate its own power, not simply a motorized-stage coach or horse carriage, which is why Karl Benz was granted his patent and is regarded as its inventor. The Motorwagen was patented on January 29, 1886 as DRP-37435: “automobile fueled by gas”. Benz began to sell the vehicle (advertising it as the Benz Patent Motorwagen) in the late summer of 1888, making it the first commercially available automobile in history. After Bertha Benz made her famous trip driving one of the vehicles a great distance and suggested to her husband the addition of another gear; the vehicle was then equipped with gear. 

During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest automobile company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899. In 1895, Benz designed the first truck in history, with some of the units later modified by the first motor bus company: the Netphener, becoming the first motor buses in history. In 1896, Karl Benz was granted a patent for his design of the first flat engine. It had horizontally opposed pistons, a design in which the corresponding pistons reach top dead centre simultaneously, thus balancing each other with respect to momentum. 

On April 4, 1929, Karl Benz died at home in Ladenburg at the age of eighty-four from a bronchial inflammation. The Benz home now has been designated as historic and is used as a scientific meeting facility for a nonprofit foundation, the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation, that honors both Bertha and Karl Benz for their roles in the history of automobiles.

Sheer GENIUS in Military, Management and Rule; started rebel as a teenager, became CHATRAPATI !!!

Shivaji Bhosale  was an Indian warrior king. An aristocrat of the Bhosle Maratha clan, Shivaji, in 1674, carved out an enclave from the declining Adilshahi sultanate of Bijapur that formed the genesis of an independent Maratha kingdom with Raigad as its capital. Shivaji established a competent and progressive civil rule with the help of a disciplined military and well-structured administrative organisations. He innovated military tactics, pioneering the guerilla warfare methods (Shiva sutra or ganimi kava), which leveraged strategic factors like geography, speed, and surprise and focused pinpoint attacks to defeat his larger and more powerful enemies. 

From a small contingent of 2,000 soldiers inherited from his father, Shivaji created a force of 100,000 soldiers; he built and restored strategically located forts both inland and coastal to safeguard his territory. He revived ancient Hindu political traditions and court conventions, and promoted the usage of Marathi and Sanskrit, rather than Persian, in court and administration.

Shivaji's legacy was to vary by observer and time, but began to take on increased importance with the emergence of the Indian independence movement, as many elevated him as a proto-nationalist and hero of the Hindus. Particularly in Maharashtra, debates over his history and role have engendered great passion and sometimes even violence as disparate groups have sought to characterise him and his legacy.

Shivaji was born in the hill-fort of Shivneri, near the city of Junnar in Pune district around the year 1630. The Government of Maharashtra accepts 19 February 1630 as his birthdate; other suggested dates include 6 April 1627 or other dates near this day. His mother named him Shivaji in honour of the goddess Shivai, to whom she had prayed for a healthy child. Shivaji's father Shahaji Bhosale was Maratha general who served the Deccan Sultanates.His mother was Jijabai, the daughter of Lakhujirao Jadhav of Sindkhed. At the time of Shivaji's birth, the power in Deccan was shared by three Islamic sultanates: Bijapur, Ahmednagar, and Golconda.

Shivaji was extremely devoted to his mother Jijabai, who was deeply religious. Throughout his life he was deeply interested in religious teachings, and regularly sought the company of Hindu and Sufi saints. Shahaji entrusted the two to his friend Dadoji Kondadev Kulkarni, who provided them a mansion to live in, profitably administered the Pune jagir, and mentored the young Shivaji. The boy was a keen outdoorsman, but had little formal education. Shivaji drew his earliest trusted comrades and a large number of his soldiers from the Maval region, including Yesaji Kank, Suryaji Kakade, Baji Pasalkar, Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Tanaji Malusare. 

In the company of his Maval comrades, Shivaji wandered over the hills and forests of the Sahyadrirange, hardening himself and acquiring first-hand knowledge of the land, which was to later prove applicable to his military endeavours. At the age of 12, Shivaji was taken to Bangalore where he, his elder brother Sambhaji and his stepbrother Ekoji I were further formally trained. He married Saibai, a member of the prominent Nimbalkar family in 1640.Around 1645-6, the teenage Shivaji first expressed his concept for Hindavi swarajya, in a letter to Dadaji Naras Prabhu.

In 1645, the 16 year old Shivaji bribed or persuaded the Bijapuri commander of the Torna Fort, Inayat Khan, to hand over the possession of the fort to him. Firangoji Narsala, who held the Chakan fort professed his loyalty to Shivaji and the fort of Kondana was acquired by bribing the Adilshahi governor. On 25 July 1648, Shahaji was imprisoned by Baji Ghorpade under the orders of the current Adilshah, Mohammed Adil Shah, in a bid to contain Shivaji. Shahaji was conditionally released in 1649 after Shivaji and Sambhaji surrendered the forts of Kondhana, Bangalore and Kandarpi; during this period Shivaji maintained a low profile. Following his father's death, Shivaji resumed raiding, seizing the kingdom of Javali from a neighbouring Maratha chieftain in 1656.

Shivaji was an able administrator who established a government that included modern concepts such as cabinet (Ashtapradhan mandal composed of eight ministers), foreign affairs (Dabir) and internal intelligence. Shivaji was a devout Hindu, but respected all religions within the region. Shivaji had great respect for other contemporary saints, especially Samarth Ramdas, to whom he gave the fort of Parali, later renamed as 'Sajjangad'. 

Among the various poems written on Shivaji, Ramdas'Shivastuti ("Praise of King Shivaji") is the most famous. Shivaji allowed his subjects freedom of religion and opposed forced conversion. Shivaji also promulgated other enlightened values, andcondemned slavery. He applied a humane and liberal policy to the women of his state. Kafi Khan, the Mughal historian and Francois Bernier, a French traveller, spoke highly of his religious policy.

Though many of Shivaji's enemy states were Muslim, he treated Muslims under his rule with tolerance for their religion. Shivaji had several noteworthy Muslim soldiers, especially in his Navy. Ibrahim Khan and Daulat Khan (both were African descendants) were prominent in the navy; and Siddi Ibrahim was chief of artillery. Muslim soldiers were known for their superior skills in naval and artillery combat skills.

The French traveller Francois Bernier wrote in his Travels in Mughal India:

"I forgot to mention that during pillage of Sourate, Seva-ji, the Holy Seva-ji! Respected the habitation of the reverend father Ambrose, the Capuchin missionary. 'The Frankish Padres are good men', he said 'and shall not be attacked.' He spared also the house of a deceased Delale or Gentile broker, of the Dutch, because assured that he had been very charitable while alive."

He built a powerful navy. Maynak Bhandari was one of the first chiefs of the Maratha Navy under Shivaji, and helped in both building the Maratha Navy and safeguarding the coastline of the emerging Maratha Empire. He built new forts like Sindhudurg and strengthened old ones like Vijaydurg on the west coast. The Maratha navy held its own against the British, Portuguese and Dutch. He was one of the pioneers of commando actions, then known as ganimi kava (enemy trickery). Shivaji was responsible for many significant changes in military organisation:

• A standing army belonging to the state, called paga.
• All war horses belonged to the state; responsibility for their upkeep rested on the Sovereign.
• Creation of part-time soldiers from peasants who worked for eight months in their fields and supported four months in war for which they were paid.
• Highly mobile and light infantry and cavalry excelling in commando tactics.
• The introduction of a centralized intelligence department; Bahirjee Naik was the foremost spy who provided Shivaji with enemy information in all of Shivaji's campaigns.
• Introduction of field craft, such as guerrilla warfare, commando actions, and swift flanking attacks. Field-Marshal Montgomery, in his "History of Warfare", while generally dismissive of the quality of generalship in the military history of the Indian subcontinent, makes an exception for Shivaji and Baji Rao I. Summarizing Shivaji's mastery of guerilla tactics, Montgomery describes him as a military genius.
• Innovation of weapons and firepower, innovative use of traditional weapons like thetiger claw (vaghnakh) and vita.
• Militarisation of large swathes of society, across all classes, with the entire peasant population of settlements and villages near forts actively involved in their defence.

Shivaji captured strategically important forts at Murambdev (Rajgad), Torana, Kondana (Sinhagad) and Purandar and laid the foundation of swaraj or self-rule. Toward the end of his career, he had a control of 360 forts to secure his growing kingdom. Shivaji himself constructed about 15–20 totally new forts (including key sea forts like Sindhudurg), but he also rebuilt or repaired many strategically placed forts to create a chain of 300 or more, stretched over a thousand kilometres across the rugged crest of the Western Ghats. 

Each were placed under three officers of equal status lest a single traitor be bribed or tempted to deliver it to the enemy. The officers (sabnis, havaldar, sarnobat) acted jointly and provided mutual checks and balance.

This Amazing Painter invented a code because of late news of wife's demise; which was used throughout the globe as TELEGRAPH !!!

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American painter who turned inventor.After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of the Morse code, and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of the pastor Jedidiah Morse, who was also a geographer, and his wife Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese.

After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Samuel Morse went on to Yale College to receive instruction in the subjects of religious philosophy, mathematics and science of horses. While at Yale, he attended lectures on electricity from Benjamin Silliman and Jeremiah Day. He supported himself by painting. In 1810, he graduated from Yale with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

Although Samuel Morse respected his father's religious opinions, he sympathized with the Unitarians.Among the converts to Unitarianism were the prominent Pickerings of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, whom Morse had painted. Some critics thought his sympathies represented his own anti-Federalism. Morse was commissioned to paint President James Monroe in 1820. He embodied Jeffersonian democracy by favoring the common man over the aristocrat.

In 1826 he helped found the National Academy of Design in New York City. He served as the Academy's President from 1826 to 1845 and again from 1861 to 1862.

On a subsequent visit to Paris in 1839, Morse met Louis Daguerre. He became interested in the latter's daguerreotype—the first practical means of photography. Morse wrote a letter to the New York Observer describing the invention, which was published widely in the American press and provided a broad awareness of the new technology.

As noted, in 1825 New York City had commissioned Morse to paint a portrait of Lafayette, then visiting Washington, DC. While Morse was painting, a horse messenger delivered a letter from his father that read, "Your dear wife is convalescent". The next day he received a letter from his father detailing his wife's sudden death. Morse immediately left Washington for his home at New Haven, leaving the portrait of Lafayette unfinished. By the time he arrived, his wife had already been buried. Heartbroken that for days he was unaware of his wife's failing health and her death,he decided to explore a means of rapid long distance communication.

While returning by ship from Europe in 1832, Morse encountered Charles Thomas Jackson of Boston, a man who was well schooled inelectromagnetism. Witnessing various experiments with Jackson's electromagnet, Morse developed the concept of a single-wire telegraph. The original Morse telegraph, submitted with his patent application, is part of the collections of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution. In time the Morse code, which he developed, would become the primary language of telegraphy in the world. It is still the standard for rhythmic transmission of data.

Morse received a patent for the telegraph in 1847, at the old Beylerbeyi Palace (the present Beylerbeyi Palace was built in 1861–1865 on the same location) in Istanbul, which was issued by Sultan Abdülmecid, who personally tested the new invention. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849. The original patent went to the Breese side of the family after the death of Samuel Morse.

Morse lent his support to Cyrus West Field’s ambitious plan to construct the first transoceanic telegraph line. Morse had experimented with underwater telegraph circuits since 1842. He invested $10,000 in Field’s Atlantic Telegraph Company, took a seat on its board of directors, and was appointed honorary "Electrician". In 1856, Morse traveled to London to help Charles Tilston Bright and Edward Whitehouse test a 2,000-mile-length of spooled cable. After the first two cable-laying attempts failed, Field reorganized the project, removing Morse from direct involvement. Though the cable broke three times during the third attempt, it was successfully repaired, and the first transatlantic telegraph messages were sent in 1858.

In addition to the telegraph, Morse invented a marble-cutting machine that could carve three-dimensional sculptures in marble or stone. He could not patent it, however, because of an existing 1820 Thomas Blanchard design.

Patents to his name:

• US Patent 1,647, Improvement in the mode of communicating information by signals by the application of electro-magnetism, June 20, 1840
• US Patent 1,647 (Reissue #79), Improvement in the mode of communicating information by signals by the application of electro-magnetism, January 15, 1846
• US Patent 3,316, Method of introducing wire into metallic pipes, October 5, 1843
• US Patent 4,453, Improvement in Electro-magnetic telegraphs, April 11, 1846
• US Patent 6,420, Improvement in electric telegraphs, May 1, 1849

Morse code is 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. The International Morse Code encodes the ISO basic Latin alphabet, some extra Latin letters, the Arabic numerals and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals as standardized sequences of short and long signals called "dots" and "dashes", or "dits" and "dahs". Because many non-English natural languages use more than the 26 Roman letters, extensions to the Morse alphabet exist for those languages.

Ever wondered lighting a flashlight powered by body heat ? This 16 years old did it !!!

Two years ago, Ann Makosinski was inspired by a friend in the Philippines who didn't have electricity – the girl told Ann she couldn't complete her homework and was failing in school. So she experimenting with Peltier tiles, which produce an electrical current when opposite sides are heated and cooled at the same time. She said she'd heard people described as "walking 100-watt lightbulbs," and became inspired to use body heat as an energy source. "We have so much energy just radiating out of us, and it's totally being wasted," she told ABC News. 

Ann spent months working on the project; her patent-pending design uses a transformer of her own creation. Incredibly, the project only took second place at her local science fair. Makosinski’s flashlight is hollow. The tiles are warmed on the outside, and cooled by the air inside.That generates enough power to maintain a steady beam of light for 20 minutes.

The 'hollow flashlight' – which Makosinski has defined as "ergonomic" and "thermodynamically efficient". Makosinski says temperature comes into play, because there needs to be a five-degree difference between the user's hand and the room's – or atmosphere's – ambient temperature. "They're these flat tiles," she told Larson, "and if your body heat runs on one side, and you cool the other side, it will produce electricity.

What Makosinski did was to leave out the power supply, and instead hook up a set of wires and a power transformer, and run the whole thing in reverse. She put the 'cool' side of these tiles against the outer shell of the flashlight handle, and the 'hot' side of the tiles against a hollow aluminum tube inside the handle. As the heat from the hand holding the flashlight warms the 'cool' side of the tile, the tile moves that heat to the other side, generating an electric current. When the heat reaches the other side, the room-temperature aluminum pipe draws the heat away, and this sets up a continuous current that runs through the transformer and makes the LEDs light up. As long as there's a temperature difference between the two sides of the tile, the electricity will flow and the greater the temperature difference, the brighter the flashlight will be.

"For this first project, I heated one side with a candle and cooled the other side, so there was a very large temperature differential. I noticed that the greater the temperature differential, between the hot and the cold sides, the more power was produced. "As humans, we radiate enough heat that's close to 100 watts' worth of lightbulbs. So I thought, 'Why not take advantage of that?' The flashlight just seemed like the best application."

If you hooked up one of the 'Peltier tiles' in this flashlight to a battery, one side of the tile would heat up and the other side would get cold (and it's always the same sides). This would eventually reach a point where it stopped, maintaining the same temperature difference between the two sides. If you cooled the 'hot' side of the tile or heated the 'cold' side of it (or both), the tile would draw more current from the battery to push more heat from the 'cold' side to the 'hot' side, to try to keep the same temperature difference.

She has filed a provisional patent application with the United States and Trademark Office. She may look into mass producing it and putting them into emergency kits etc. Or  take the technology itself and apply it to other areas, eg. medical devices. However, before I did any of that I would want to improve it a lot in its efficiency, design, etc.

Over the summer, the school got a message from someone offering her supplies to help improve her design.