Despite having created a billion dollar formula, this pharmacist died bankrupt and the buyer created biggest soft drink empire!!

John Stith Pemberton (July 8, 1831 – August 16, 1888) was an American pharmacist, and is best known for being the inventor of Coca-Cola. Pemberton was born July 8, 1831, in Knoxville, Crawford County, Georgia. His father was James Clifford Pemberton, brother of Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton. Pemberton was raised in Rome, Georgia. He entered the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed to practice pharmacy. 

In April 1865 while serving as lieutenant colonel of the Confederate Army's 12th Cavalry Regiment, Georgia State Guard, Pemberton was wounded in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia. He was slashed across the chest by a saber, and like many wounded veterans, he became addicted to the morphine used to ease the pain. He was a pharmacist and as such searched for a cure for his addiction. In 1866, in Columbus, Georgia, he started working on painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine. His first was "Dr. Tuggle's Compound Syrup of Globe Flower (cephalanthus oxidentalis)." 

He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating his own version of Vin Mariani, containing kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. According to Coca-Cola historian, Phil Mooney, Pemberton's world-famous soda was "created in Columbus, Georgia and carried to Atlanta." With public concern about the drug addiction, depression and alcoholism among war veterans, and "neurasthenia", as well as among "highly-strung" Southern women, Pemberton's medicine was advertised as particularly beneficial for "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration".

In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton found himself forced to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. Pemberton relied on Atlanta druggist Willis Venable to test and help him perfect the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. With Venable's assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for its preparation that eventually included blending the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make another glass.

Pemberton decided then to sell it as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name quite clearly refers to the two main ingredients, the controversy over its cocaine content would later prompt The Coca-Cola Company to state that the name was "meaningless but fanciful." Robinson also hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. 

Pemberton made many health claims for his product, touting it as a "valuable brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion and calm nerves, and marketed it as "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating," and "invigorating." Soon after Coca-Cola hit the market, Pemberton fell ill and nearly bankrupt. Sick and desperate, he began selling rights to his formula to his business partners in Atlanta. 

Part of his motivation to sell actually derived from his expensive continuing morphine addiction. Pemberton had a hunch that his formula "some day will be a national drink," so he attempted to retain a share of the ownership to leave to his son. But Pemberton's son wanted the money. So in 1888 Pemberton and his son sold the remaining portion of the patent to Asa Candler. John Pemberton died at age 57 in August 1888, poor, sick, addicted to morphine, and a victim of stomach cancer. His body was returned to Columbus, Georgia, where he was laid to rest at Linwood Cemetery. His gravemarker is engraved with symbols showing his Confederate military service and his pride in being a Freemason. His son continued to sell an alternative to his father's formula, but only six years later Charles Pemberton died, an opium user himself.

In 2010, the Coca-Cola Company paid tribute to Pemberton as a key character within an advertising campaign called "Secret Formula". Centered on the secret ingredients of Coca-Cola, imagery related to Pemberton was used to make people more aware of Coke's history and mythology. In 2013, Pemberton was portrayed by Bill Hader in the "Atlanta" episode of Comedy Central's Drunk History, created by Derek Waters.

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines throughout the world. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke (a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company in the United States since March 27, 1944). Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.

Why freedom at Midnight?

We always have heard seen & remembered our freedom & its speech,"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.....". However it was unclear till a long time so as to why the particular time, date & year. After reading the books & posts over the web, the information found was fascination & amusing. Please read the information compiled. Happy Independence Day!!!!

With the end of the Second World War and decline in British military and economic strength it was clear that the British Raj could not continue to rule India - the greatest colony and imperial triumph in the history of mankind. The Prime Minister Clement Attlee had agreed that the Raj must end by June 1948 - one way or another, that it was no longer physically possible to control the empire with the failing strength of the British.

The reason behind choosing the year is that around 1940, Indian national army has been quite strengthened and after the world war II, British has become pretty financially weak. In 1945, Labour party won the Britain elections who have already promised to grant independence to all English colonies.

Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India was sent to India with special powers to settle matters which were going out of hand with every passing day and with a seemingly impossible deadline. He had a clear mandate that the British were to leave at the earliest and with the minimum political turmoil. This task was however a very complex one for even the very best of diplomats and statesmen.

Mountbatten had a vision though he did not know how to deliver it -

• an India that would stay in the Commonwealth, if he could
• that meant an India with no reason to take offense at the deal that Britain offered her
• Ideally, a united India, with Hindus and Muslims sharing power
• but if he couldn't get that, then what he wanted was as peaceful a division as possible.

The discussion of independence of India was continued with Indian leaders and finally, lord Mountbatten (last viceroy of India) appointed in Feb 1947 has planned to transfer the power to India by June 1948. Instead, the conflict between Jinnah and Nehru on the matter of partition created a large communal disturbance across the country, so date was advanced  to June 3rd, 1947.

In order to gain the confidence and trust of the Indian leaders, he held 133 interviews in the first two months of his visit and always with the same frankness and willingness to accommodate and understand their viewpoints. He traveled extensively to the different parts of India and even to the tribal north-west frontier. In the end, though, only four men really counted i.e. Mountbatten himself, Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah & Nehru.

Mountbatten found that the biggest and most ominous threat to a united India after independence was Jinnah, the leader of the Indian Muslim League. Jinnah would listen to no logic, no negotiation. He had his mind set on a separate Muslim nation – Pakistan and he would have it. All he wanted to do was keep talking and push the British towards the deadline. It became clear in some time that a united country was not possible no matter what Mahatma Gandhi had to say. 

With every passing day, the British control over the vast expanses of the Indian subcontinent was falling apart - the British Indian Army was disintegrating , the police found themselves less and less able to keep order, British officials were slipping away, knowing their time was just about up. 

The Raj couldn’t last even till mid-1948. Time was running away from India and from Mountbatten. If India was to be saved from utter destruction of a civil war and indiscriminate communal violence, a deal had to be made immediately. Mountbatten proposed the creation of two independent dominions – India and Pakistan. 

The Sind and Baluchistan were Muslim, and would become Western Pakistan. The Punjab and Bengal would be split up - the Muslim dominated areas going to Pakistan and the Hindu dominated areas going to India. The Muslim dominated regions of Bengal would become East Pakistan separated from the country’s seat of power in West Pakistan by thousands of kilometers of the Indian heartland in between. Princely states would have the option of joining either of the new dominions. Whatever assets British India had - army, treasury, stamps in the Post Office - would be split up fairly. Both Congress and the Muslim League accepted the settlement, and Mountbatten announced the final day: August 15th, 1947.

The reason behind choosing 15th August as India’s Independence Day - a fateful day in the history of the world when two nations would see their first dawns was chosen by Lord Mountbatten on a whim. Mountbatten had forgotten to consult the astrologers, who had great clout in India, and they were furious. Fridays were bad days in general, and this one was so bad, they warned, that rather than accept it, the people of India should accept British rule. Under some calculations, August 15th lay under the Zodiac sign for Capricorn. That sign was known for its hostility to all centrifugal – pulling-apart – forces. Therefore, it was the worst possible day to do a partition. And on that day, India would be passing through the influence of Saturn, a very unlucky and unfriendly planet.

This Psychologist researched & conducted some very famous Chess experiments!!!

Adrianus Dingeman (Adriaan) de Groot (Santpoort, 26 October 1914 – Schiermonnikoog, 14 August 2006) was a Dutch chess master and psychologist, who conducted some of the most famous chess experiments of all time in the 1940s-60. In 1946 he wrote his thesis Het denken van den schaker, which in 1965 was translated into English and published as Thought and choice in chess. De Groot played for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads of 1937 and 1939.

The studies involve participants of all chess backgrounds, from amateurs to masters. They investigate the cognitive requirements and the thought processes involved in moving a chess piece. The participants were usually required to solve a given chess problem correctly under the supervision of an experimenter and represent their thought-processes vocally so that they could be recorded.

De Groot found that much of what is important in choosing a move occurs during the first few seconds of exposure to a new position. Four stages in the task of choosing the next move were noted. The first stage was the 'orientation phase', in which the subject assessed the situation and determined a very general idea of what to do next. The second stage, the 'exploration phase' was manifested by looking at some branches of the game tree. The third stage, or 'investigation phase' resulted in the subject choosing a probable best move. Finally, in the fourth stage, the 'proof phase', saw the subject confirming with him/herself that the results of the investigation were valid.

De Groot concurred with Alfred Binet that visual memory and visual perception are important attributors and that problem-solving ability is of paramount importance. Memory is particularly important, according to de Groot (1965) in that there are no ‘new’ moves in chess and so those from personal experience or from the experience of others can be committed to memory.

• Thought and choice in chess (1965).
• Saint Nicholas, A psychoanalytic study of his history and myth (1965).
• Methodology. Foundations of inference and research in the behavioral sciences (1969).
• Perception and memory in chess: Heuristics of the professional eye (1996; with Fernand Gobet and Riekent Jongman).

Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide in homes, parks, clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.

Each player begins the game with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently. Pieces are used to attack and capture the opponent's pieces, with the objective to 'checkmate' the opponent's king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. In addition to checkmate, the game can be won by the voluntary resignation of the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may also result in a draw in several ways, where neither player wins. The course of the game is divided into three phases: opening, middlegame, and endgame.

Chess is believed to have originated in Eastern India, c. 280 – 550 CE, in the Gupta Empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga (Sanskrit: चतुरङ्गक्रीडा), literally four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively. The earliest evidence of chess is found in the neighboring Sassanid Persia around 600, where the game came to be known by the name chatrang. Chatrang is evoked in three epic romances written in Pahlavi (Middle Persian). 

Chatrang was taken up by the Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia (633–44), where it was then named shatranj, with the pieces largely retaining their Persian names. In Spanish "shatranj" was rendered as ajedrez ("al-shatranj"), in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as ζατρίκιον (zatrikion, which comes directly from the Persian chatrang), but in the rest of Europe it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh ("king"), which was familiar as an exclamation and became the English words "check" and "chess". Murray theorized that Muslim traders came to European seaports with ornamental chess kings as curios before they brought the game of chess.

The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th century, it was described in a famous 13th-century manuscript covering shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos. Another theory contends that chess arose from the game xiangqi (Chinese chess) or one of its predecessors, although this has been contested.

This Flautist Physician invented Stethoscope inspired while observing children playing with long, hollow sticks in the days !!!

René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (17 February 1781 – 13 August 1826) was a French physician. He invented the stethoscope in 1816, while working at the Hôpital Necker and pioneered its use in diagnosing various chest conditions. He died of tuberculosis in 1826. He was born in Quimper (Brittany). His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five or six, and he went to live with his grand-uncle the AbbéLaennec (a priest). At the age of twelve he proceeded to Nantes where his uncle, Guillaime-François Laennec, worked in the faculty of medicine at the university. 

Laennec was a gifted student, he learned English and German, and began his medical studies under his uncle's direction. His father (a lawyer) later discouraged him from continuing as a doctor and René then had a period of time where he took long walks in the country, danced, studied Greek and wrote poetry. However, in 1799 he returned to study. Laennec studied medicine in Paris under several famous physicians, including Dupuytren and Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets. There he was trained to use sound as a diagnostic aid. He was noted as a very kind man and his charity to the poor became proverbial.

Laennec wrote the classic treatise De l'Auscultation Médiate, published in August 1819. The preface reads:

In 1816, I was consulted by a young woman laboring under general symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great degree of fatness. The other method just mentioned [direct auscultation] being rendered inadmissible by the age and sex of the patient, I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact in acoustics, ... the great distinctness with which we hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood on applying our ear to the other. 

Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a quire of paper into a kind of cylinder and applied one end of it to the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever been able to do by the immediate application of my ear.

Laennec had discovered that the new stethoscope was superior to the normally used method of placing the ear over the chest, particularly if the patient was overweight. Laennec is said to have seen schoolchildren playing with long, hollow sticks in the days leading up to his innovation. The children held their ear to one end of the stick while the opposite end was scratched with a pin, the stick transmitted and amplified the scratch. He built his first instrument as a 25 cm by 2.5 cm hollow wooden cylinder, which he later refined to comprise three detachable parts. 

His clinical work allowed him to follow chest patients from bedside to the autopsy table. He was therefore able to correlate sounds captured by his new instruments with specific pathological changes in the chest, in effect pioneering a new non-invasive diagnostic tool. 

Laennec was the first to classify and discuss the termsrales, rhonchi, crepitance, and egophony – terms that doctors now use on a daily basis during physical exams and diagnoses. In February 1818, he presented his findings in a talk at the Academie de Medecin, later publishing his findings in 1819. Laennec coined the phrase mediate auscultation (indirect listening), as opposed to the popular practice at the time of directly placing the ear on the chest (immediate auscultation). 

He named his instrument the stethoscope, from stethos (chest), and skopos (examination). Laennec often referred to the stethoscope as "the cylinder," and as he neared death only a few years later, he bequeathed his own stethoscope to his nephew, referring to it as "the greatest legacy of my life." The modern binaural stethoscope with two ear pieces was invented in 1851 by Arthur Leared. George Cammann perfected the design of the instrument for commercial production in 1852, which has become the standard ever since.

Laennec developed the understanding of peritonitis and cirrhosis. Although the disease of cirrhosis was known, Laennec gave cirrhosis its name, using the Greek word (kirrhos, tawny) that referred to the tawny, yellow nodules characteristic of the disease. He coined the term melanoma and described metastases of melanoma to the lungs. In 1804, while still a medical student, he was the first person to lecture on melanoma. This lecture was subsequently published in 1805. 

Laennec actually used the term 'melanose,' which he derived from the Greek (mela, melan) for "black." Over the years, there were bitter exchanges between Laennec and Dupuytren, the latter objecting that there was no mention of his work in this area and his role in its discovery.

He also studied tuberculosis. Laennec advocated objective scientific observation. Professor Benjamin Ward Richardson stated in Disciples of Aesculapius that "the true student of medicine reads Laennec's treatise on mediate auscultation and the use of the stethoscope once in two years at least as long as he is in practice. It ranks with the original work of Vesalius, Harvey and Hippocrates."

The stethoscope is an acoustic medical device for auscultation, or listening to the internal sounds of an animal or human body. It is often used to listen to lung and heart sounds. It is also used to listen to intestines and blood flow in arteries and veins. In combination with a sphygmomanometer, it is commonly used for measurements of blood pressure. Less commonly, "mechanic's stethoscopes" are used to listen to internal sounds made by machines, such as diagnosing a malfunctioning automobile engine by listening to the sounds of its internal parts. 

Stethoscopes can also be used to check scientific vacuum chambers for leaks, and for various other small-scale acoustic monitoring tasks. A stethoscope that intensifies auscultatory sounds is called phonendoscope.

The medical historian Jacalyn Duffin has argued that the invention of the stethoscope marked a major step in the redefinition of disease from being a bundle of symptoms, to the current sense of a disease as a problem with an anatomical system even if there are no noticeable symptoms. This re-conceptualiization occurred in part, Duffin argues, because prior to the stethoscopes, there were no non-lethal instruments for exploring internal anatomy

Acoustic Stethoscope, Electronic stethoscope, Recording Stethoscope, Fetal Stethoscope and Doppler Stethoscope were the other Stethoscopes which are developed over the period of time with advancement and evolution.

Not only did he pioneer "India's space programme", but also set up world class education & research facilities!!!

Dr. Sarabhai emphasized the importance of a space programme in his quote:

"There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight.""But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society."

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai (12 August 1919 – 30 December 1971) was an Indian physicist. He is considered the father of India's space programme. Dr.Vikram Sarabhai was born on 12 August 1919 in the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat state in western India. His father Ambalal Sarabhai was an affluent industrialist and owned many textiles mills in Gujarat. Vikram Sarabhai was one of the eight children of Ambalal and Sarla Devi.

Sarabhai matriculated from the Gujarat College in Ahmedabad after passing the Intermediate Science examination. After that, he moved to England and joined the St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He received the Tripos in Natural Sciences from Cambridge in 1940. In September, 1942, Vikram Sarabhai married Mrinalini Sarabhai, a celebrated classical dancer. The wedding was held in Chennai without anyone from Vikram's side of the family attending the wedding ceremony because of the ongoing Quit India movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. His daughter Mallika Sarabhai was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour for the year 2010 and his son Kartikeya Sarabhai was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012. Sarabhai returned to an independent India in 1947. 

Looking at the needs of the country, he persuaded charitable trusts controlled by his family and friends to endow a research institution near his home in Ahmedabad. This led to the creation of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad on November 11, 1947. The establishment of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was one of his greatest achievements. He successfully convinced the government of the importance of a space programme for a developing country like India after the Russian Sputnik launch. 

Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely regarded as the father of India's nuclear science program, supported Dr. Sarabhai in setting up the first rocket launching station in India. This center was established at Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the coast of the Arabian Sea, primarily because of its proximity to the equator. After a remarkable effort in setting up the infrastructure, personnel, communication links, and launch pads, the inaugural flight was launched on November 21, 1963 with a sodium vapour payload.

As a result of Dr. Sarabhai's dialogue with NASA in 1966, the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was launched during July 1975 – July 1976 (when Dr.Sarabhai was no more). Dr. Sarabhai started a project for the fabrication and launch of an Indian satellite. As a result, the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975 from a Russian Cosmodrome. 

Dr. Sarabhai was very interested in science education and founded a Community Science Centre at Ahmedabad in 1966. Today, the centre is called the Vikram A Sarabhai Community Science Centre. He led the Sarabhai family's diverse business conglomerate. His interests varied from science to sports to statistics. He set up Operations Research Group (ORG), the first market research organization in the country Sarabhai established many institutes which are of international repute. 

Most notable among them are the Nehru Foundation for Development in Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), which is considered a world class management institute. Also, he helped establish the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), which is doing a commendable job in R&D in physics. Sarabhai set up Ahmedabad Textiles Industrial Research Association (ATIRA), which helped the booming textiles business in Ahmedabad. He also set up the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT). 

Not stopping with all these, he went ahead and set up the Blind Men Association(BMA) which helps visually-challenged people with the necessary skills and support. Along with his wife Mrinalini Sarabhai, he founded the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts. Other well-known institutions established by him include the Faster Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) in Kalpakkam, Variable Energy Cyclotron Project in Calcutta, Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) in Hyderabad and Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) in Jaduguda, Jharkhand.