Skating your heart out on the ICE in any place was made possible this day!!!

The Glaciarium was the world's first mechanically frozen ice rink. An item in the 8 June 1844 issue of Littell's Living Age headed "The Glaciarium" reports that "This establishment, which has been removed to Grafton street East' Tottenham-court-road,was opened on Monday afternoon. The area of artificial ice is extremely convenient for such as may be desirous of engaging in the graceful and manly pastime of skating". A later rink was opened by John Gamgee in a tent in a small building just off the Kings Road in Chelsea, London, on 7 January 1876. In March, it moved to a permanent venue at 379 Kings Road, where a rink measuring 40 by 24 feet was established.

The rink was based on a concrete surface, with layers of earth, cow hair and timber planks. Atop these were laid oval copper pipes carrying a solution of glycerine with ether, nitrogen peroxide and water. The pipes were covered by water and the solution was pumped through, freezing the water into ice. Gamgee had discovered the process while attempting to develop a method to freeze meat for import from Australia and New Zealand, and had patented it as early as 1870.

He installed anorchestra gallery, which could also be used by spectators, and decorated the walls with views of the Swiss Alps. The rink initially proved a success, and Gamgee opened two further rinks later in the year: at Rusholme in Manchester and the "Floating Glaciarium" at Charing Cross in London, this last significantly larger at 115 by 25 feet. However, the process was expensive, and mists rising from the ice deterred customers, forcing Gamgee to close the Glaciarium by the end of the year, and all his rinks had shut by mid-1878. However, the Southport Glaciarium opened in 1879, using Gamgee's method.

An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Rink, a Scottish word meaning 'course', was used as the name of a place where curling was played. The name has been retained for the construction of ice areas for other sports and uses.

Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, bandy, rink bandy, ringette, speed skating, figure skating, ice stock sport and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows. There are two types of rinks in prevalent use today: natural, where freezing occurs from cold ambient temperatures, and artificial (or mechanically-frozen), where a coolant produces cold temperatures in the surface below the water, causing the water to freeze. There are also synthetic ice rinks where skating surfaces are made out of plastics.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaciarium, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_rink

Started earning in his teens; this Electrical Engineer was credited for first working LASER!!!

Theodore Harold "Ted" Maiman (July 11, 1927 – May 5, 2007) was an American Engineer and physicist credited with the invention of the first working laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Maiman’s laser led to the subsequent development of many other types of lasers. The laser was successfully fired on May 16, 1960. In a July 7, 1960 press conference in Manhattan, Maiman and his employer, Hughes Aircraft Company, announced the laser to the world. 

Maiman was granted a patent for his invention, and he received many awards and honors for his work. Maiman's experiences in developing the first laser and subsequent related events are described in his book, The Laser Odyssey.

Maiman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Abraham "Abe" Maiman, an electrical engineer and inventor, and Rose Abramson. At a young age his family moved to Denver, Colorado, where he helped his father with experimentation in a home electronics laboratory. In his teens Maiman earned money by repairing electrical appliances and radios, and after leaving high school was employed as a junior engineer with the National Union Radio Company at age 17.

Following a year's service in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II, he earned a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Colorado. Maiman then went on to graduate studies at Stanford University where he earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1951 and a PhD in Physics in 1955. His doctoral thesis in experimental physics involved detailed microwave-optical measurements of fine structural splittings in excited helium atoms; which was instrumental in his development of the laser.

In 1956 Maiman started work with the Atomic Physics Department of the Hughes Aircraft Company (later Hughes Research Laboratories or HRL Laboratories) in California where he led the ruby maser redesign project for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, reducing it from a 2.5-ton cryogenic device to 4 pounds while improving its performance. As a result of this success Maiman persuaded Hughes management to use company funds to support his laser project beginning in mid-1959. 

On a total budget of $50,000, Maiman turned to the development of a laser based on his own design with a synthetic ruby crystal, which other scientists seeking to make a laser felt would not work. On May 16, 1960, at Hughes’ Malibu, California, labs, Maiman’s solid-state pink ruby laser emitted mankind’s first coherent light—with rays all the same wavelength and fully in phase. Maiman documented his invention in Nature and published other scholarly articles describing the science and technology underlying his laser.

Maiman had begun conceptualizing a solid-state laser design even before he undertook the maser project at Hughes. Maiman identified multiple flaws in the Schawlow-Townes proposal and pursued his own solid-state design. Other major research groups at IBM, Bell Labs, MIT, Westinghouse, RCA, Columbia University, among others, were also pursuing projects to develop a laser. As Townes later wrote, "Maiman's laser had several aspects not considered in our theoretical paper, nor discussed by others before the ruby demonstration."

Later, he joined the newly formed Quantatron company, which grew in-house ruby crystals for lasers. In 1962 Maiman founded and became the president of the Korad Corporation, which manufactured high-power ruby lasers. After Korad was fully acquired by Union Carbide in 1968, Maiman left to found Maiman Associates, a venture capital firm. In 1971 Maiman founded the Laser Video Corporation, and from 1976 to 1983 he worked as vice president for advanced technology at TRW Electronics (now Northrup Grumman).

He later served as consultant to Laser Centers of America, Inc. (now LCA-Vision Inc.) and director of Control Laser Corporation. Maiman continued his involvement in laser developments and applications. In addition to his patent for the first working laser, Maiman authored a number of patents on masers, lasers, laser displays, optical scanning, and modulation.

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". Lasers differ from other sources of light because they emit light coherently. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications like laser cutting and lithography. 

Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over long distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers. Lasers can also have hightemporal coherence which allows them to have a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they only emit a single color of light. Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light—as short as a femtosecond.

This Tenacious Tennant bleached his way to create a dynasty and being socially active in bringing reforms!!!

Charles Tennant (3 May 1768 - 1 October 1838) was a Scottish chemist and industrialist. He discovered bleaching powder and founded an industrial dynasty. He was born at Laigh Corton, Alloway, Ayrshire to John Tennant and his second wife Margaret McClure. Charles was the ninth of John Tennant's sixteen children. He was fortunate to receive schooling both at home and at the Ochiltree parish school. He was apprenticed by his father to a masterhandloom weaver. This was a highly paid occupation, requiring great skill and considerable intelligence.

Charles was quick to learn his trade (weaving) but also to see that the growth of the industry far surpassed the development of bleaching methods, which were very primitive. An important aspect of the weaving industry was bleaching cloth. At that time this involved treatment with stale urine and leaving the cloth exposed to sunlight for many months in so called bleaching fields. Huge quantities of unbleached cotton piled up in the warehouses. Charles left his well paid weaving position to try to develop improved bleaching methods. This led him to start his own bleaching fields in 1788, at Darnley, near Barrhead, Renfrewshire. From his father he inherited an untiring capacity for work.

Having acquired his bleachfield, Charles turned his mind and energy to developing ways to shorten the time required in bleaching. Others had already done much work on this problem and managed to reduce bleaching time from eighteen months to four by replacing sour milk with sulphuric acid in the bleaching process. Further, in the last half of the eighteenth century, bleachers started to use lime in the bleaching process, but only in secret due to possible injurious effects from the lime. Charles had the original idea that a combination of chlorine and lime would produce the best bleaching results. He worked on this idea for several years and was finally successful. 

His method proved to be effective, inexpensive and harmless. He was granted patent #2209 on 23 January 1798. He continued his research and developed a bleaching powder for which he was granted patent #2312 on 30 April 1799. While still working in the bleachfields around the year 1794, Charles formed a partnership with four friends. Charles Macintosh, an excellent chemist, was the fourth partner. He is known for his technique of macintosh waterproofing and he also assisted in the invention of bleaching powder. Charles was indeed fortunate to have partners.

With the chemist Charles Macintosh (1766–1843) he helped establish Scotland's first alum works at Hurlet, Renfrewshire. In 1798 he took out a patent for a bleach liquor formed by passing chlorine into a mixture of lime and water. This product had the advantage of being cheaper than the one generally used at the time because it substituted lime for potash.

Immediately after granting of the patent on bleaching, Charles and his partners purchased land on the Monkland Canal, just north of Glasgow, to build a factory for the production of bleaching liquor and powder. From the first it was a splendid success. Production increased from fifty-two tons the first year, 1799, to over nine thousand two hundred tons the fifth year. Later a second plant was built at Hebburn, raising production of bleaching powder alone to twenty thousand tons by 1865.

Despite several business losses; Charles continued to expand his horizons during his time. When the partnership ended he purchased the company. As a forward thinking business man, he was in a class by himself. His company, during the 1830s and 1840s was the largest chemical plant in the world.  A great deal of unrest followed the Napoleonic wars, which had the effect of increased wealth for the manufacturing classes but poverty for the working classes. He worked for many years in the reform movement, but it was not until he reached the age of sixty-four that his effort bore fruit with the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. His ideas and active support helped create one of the most productive periods of social progress and reform, in almost every area, in Scotland's history.

He died on 1 October 1838. He was, beyond question, an entrepreneur of amazing ability. His dedication to his work, his family and his sense of what was right and fair lasted until the day he died. He was quick to champion those less fortunate, and the reforms he initiated and supported made the lives of his countrymen better.

The principal product being bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite), which was sold worldwide. By 1815 the business was known as Charles Tennant & Co. and had expanded into other chemicals, metallurgy and explosives.

Celebrating the GEMS & ICONS of ART!!!

Vasantrao Deshpande (May 2, 1920-July 30, 1983) was a renowned Hindustani classical vocalist who was also a great performer of Natya Sangeet. In 1982, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, given by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama. Vasantrao Deshpande was born in Sawlapur, District Amravati, which belongs to Vidarbha region of State of Maharashtra, in India. He started his musical training in his home town Nagpur under Shankarrao Sapre from Gwalior, who in turn was a disciple of Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. 

At the age of eight, Bhalji Pendharkar perceived his musical talent and launched him in the role of 'Krishna' in Hindi movie Kaliyamardan. He had received the training under different gharanas (schools or styles of music): Patiala, Bhendi Bazar, Kairana; yet he did not receive the stamp of any particular gharana.

He was also an accomplished tabala and harmonium player. He was equally at ease with the thumri, dadra and ghazal forms. These find their origins in countries like Iran and Afghanistan. He had picked up the original style and nuances of the thumri and ghazal while studying at Lahore. He also learnt quite a bit of Urdu to elevate his ghazal performances. Another area of music where he made his mark was "Marathi Natyasangeet".

He acted in movies like "Kaaliya Mardan"(he was just eight), "Dudh Bhaat", "Ashtavinayak" and many more. He gave playback to more than 80 Marathi films. Besides pure music, he also put together the history of Marathi music plays, from origin showing their evolution up to the present stage. This is how he presented his brainchild, his tour de force, "Marathi Natyasageetachi Vaatchaal" (the evolution of music in Marathi music plays). In this he would first explain the socio-cultural influences that shaped the musicals as they stood in a particular era and then demonstrate the evolution through its music. The concert was first held in Delhi. It stretched for three days, six hours each day. The experiment was bound to be a winner with the audience.

He was a thinker and he blended these styles to develop a style of his own. He did not believe in imitation. Considering the timbre of his voice, pitch, range and expressive capacity, he forged his own characteristic style. His development of the khayal was always full of such tensions and releases, which pleased the audience. He had an equal command of both common and uncommon Ragas and a large repertoire of compositions. He presented them judiciously, considering the type of audience before him.

Dr. Vasantrao Deshpande was an academic, earning himself a PhD in "The Transformation of Hindustani Classical Music". He was also invited to several educational institutions to deliver lectures on music, quite often with live demonstrations. Vasantrao has had several commercial releases under his name. Among them, the more famous are his LP of Marwa and a two-cassette interview, conducted by Va Pu Kale, about the history of Marathi Natya Sangeet which showcases the breadth and depth of Vasantrao's knowledge about the art form.

Vasantrao also conceived Raga Raj Kalyan, a Yaman variant with 'Pancham' dropped altogether. "Katyaar Kaaljaat Ghusli" was a successful play in his carrier.

Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian filmmaker, regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of world cinema. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoirand viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist 1948 film Bicycle Thieves during a visit to London.

Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, are popular fictional characters created by him.

Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing, and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Award in 1992. The Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992. 

Ray's father; Sukumar Ray died when Satyajit was barely three, and the family survived on Suprabha Ray's meager income. Ray studied at Ballygunge Government High School, Calcutta, and completed his BA in economics at Presidency College, Calcutta, though his interest was always in fine arts.

 In 1940, his mother insisted that he study at the Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Ray was reluctant due to his love of Calcutta, and the low opinion of the intellectual life at Santiniketan. His mother's persuasion and his respect for Tagore finally convinced him to try. In Santiniketan, Ray came to appreciate Oriental art.

In 1943, Ray started work at D.J. Keymer, a British-run advertising agency, as a "junior visualiser," earning eighty rupees a month. Although he liked visual design (graphic design) and he was mostly treated well, there was tension between the British and Indian employees of the firm. The British were better paid, and Ray felt that "the clients were generally stupid." Later, Ray also worked for Signet Press, a new publishing house started by D. K. Gupta. Gupta asked Ray to create cover designs for books to be published by Signet Press and gave him complete artistic freedom. 

Ray designed covers for many books, including Jibanananda Das's Banalata Sen, and Rupasi Bangla, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's Chander Pahar, Jim Corbett's Maneaters of Kumaon, and Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India.

French director Jean Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film The River. Ray helped him to find locations in the countryside. Ray told Renoir about his idea of filming Pather Panchali, which had long been on his mind, and Renoir encouraged him in the project. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at its headquarters office. 

During his three months in London, Ray watched 99 films. Among these was the neorealist film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thief) (1948) by Vittorio De Sica, which had a profound impact on him. Ray later said that he came out of the theatre determined to become a film-maker.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAHARASHTRA & GUJARAT!!!!

The state of Maharashtra and Gujarat were formed as a result of this movement according to the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960 enacted by the Parliament of India on 25 April 1960. The act came into effect on 1 May 1960.

Maharashtra Day, commonly known as Maharashtra Diwas in Marathi is a state holiday in Maharashtra, India commemorating the formation of the state of Maharashtra from the division of the Bombay State on 1 May 1960. Maharashtra Day is commonly associated with parades and political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history and traditions of Maharashtra.

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 defined boundaries for the states within India on the basis of languages. The Bombay State that was formed as a consequence of this act, however, was composed of different areas where different languages were spoken; Marathi, Gujarati, Kutchi and Konkani. The Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti was at the forefront of the movement to divide the Bombay State into two states; one composed of areas where people primarily spoke Gujarati and Kutchhi and the other where people primarily spoke Marathi and Konkani.

Maharashtra is a state in the western region of India. Maharashtra is the wealthiest state in India. Maharashtra is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, Gujarat and the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the northwest, Madhya Pradesh to the north and northeast, Chhattisgarh to the east, Karnataka to the south, Andhra Pradesh to the southeast and Goa to the southwest. The state covers an area of 307,713 km² (118,809 sq mi) or 9.84% of the total geographical area of India. Mumbai, the capital city of the state, is India's largest city and the financial capital of the nation. Maharashtra is the world's second most populous first-level administrative country sub-division.

The Nashik Gazetteer states that in 246 BC Maharashtra is mentioned as one of the places to which Mauryan emperor Asokasent an embassy, and it is recorded in a Chalukyan inscription of 580 CE as including three provinces and 99,000 villages. The name Maharashtra also appeared in a 7th-century inscription and in the account of a Chinese traveller, Hiuen-Tsang. 

After Indian independence, Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti demanded unification of all Marathi-speaking regions under one state. At that time, Babasaheb Ambedkar was of the opinion that linguistic reorganisation of states should be done on a "One state – One language" principle and not on a "One language – One state" principle. He submitted a memorandum to the re-organisation commission stating that a "single government can not administer such a huge state as United Maharashtra". The first state re-organisation committee created the current Maharashtra state on 1 May 1960 (known as Maharashtra Day).

Maharashtra is divided into 35 districts under given 6 divisions. These 35 districts are further divided into 109 sub-divisions of the districts and 357 talukas. Each district is governed by a district collector or district magistrate, appointed either by the Indian Administrative Service or the Maharashtra Civil Service. Each district is subdivided into sub-divisions, governed by a sub-divisional magistrate, and again into Blocks. Blocks consists of panchayats (village councils) and town municipalities. Talukas are intermediate level panchayat between the zilla panchayat (district councils) at the district level and gram panchayat (village councils) at the lower level.

Its State animal is Indian Giant Squirre; State bird is Yellow-footed Green Pigeon; State tree is Mango; State flower is Lagerstroemia; State dance is Lavani and State sport is Kabaddi. According to the provisional results of the 2011 national census, Maharashtra is the second most populous state in India with a population of 112,374,333.

Gujarat is a state in the North-West coast of India. It is known locally asJewel of the West. It has an area of 196,204 km² (75,755 sq mi) with a coastline of 1,600 km (990 mi), most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula, and a population in excess of 60 million. The state is bordered by Rajasthan to the north, Maharashtra to the south, Madhya Pradesh to the east, and the Arabian Sea as well as the Pakistani province of Sindh on the west. Its capital city is Gandhinagar, whilst its largest city is Ahmedabad.

Gujarat was known to the Ancient Greeks, the various Persian Empires, the Roman Republic, and familiar in other Western centers of civilization through the end of the European Middle Ages. The oldest written record of Gujarat's 2,000 year old maritime history is documented in a Greek book named 'The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century'.

Modern-day Gujarat is derived from Sanskrit Gurjar-Rashtra, the Gurjar nation. Parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat have been known as Gurjaratra (country ruled or protected by the Gurjars) or Gurjarabhumi (land of the Gurjars) for centuries prior to the Mughal period. Historically, the Gurjars were Sun-worshipers and are described as devoted to the feet of the Sun-god (GodSurya).

The population of Gujarat State was 60,383,628 according to the 2011 census data. The population density is 308/km2 (797.6/sq mi), lower than other Indian states.