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- Today’s History Today’s History August 16 | Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s death 2018 and the first long distance telegraph message of 1858
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Today we can talk to a person sitting in any corner of the world by video call in the blink of an eye, but decades ago it was not so easy to talk to a person sitting far away. On 16 August 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegraph message to the US President. This message took 18 hours to reach Washington from London, while it was the fastest technology at that time.
In response to this message, the US President also sent a telegraph message of 143 words. This message was received by Queen Victoria in 10 hours.
The Telegraph was created by Samuel Morse. In 1840 he received a patent for the telegraph. It is said that the idea of making Morse telegraph came while traveling in a ship. Morse had heard from travelers about Faraday’s discovery of the electromagnet. He read about electromagnets and thought that it could also be used to send messages from one place to another.
He created a combination of small lines and dots for each letter in English, which was named Morse Code. Different grooves were made for each letter to send the message. Words were made by aggregating each letter and in this way the whole message was written.
Telegraph maker Samuel Morse.
A thin electric plate was passed over these slots, which, depending on the size of the slots, would turn the electric circuit off and on. When the circuit was on, lines and dots would start to form at the receiver end. Similarly, each letter was sent from one place to another through lines and dots.
On this day in 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegraph message to US President James Buchanan. The Queen sent the message at 10:50 am. This 99-word message had 509 characters. The next day at 4.30 pm the message reached Buchanan. The message took about 18 hours to reach i.e. 1 letter was sent in 2 minutes. It was also the first official telegraph message sent across the Atlantic Ocean.
2018: Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away
Today is the death anniversary of former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He breathed his last in Delhi AIIMS on this day in 2018. Born on 25 December 1924, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the only politician in the country who reached Parliament by winning six Lok Sabha seats in four states.
He is the only leader to reach Parliament by winning from Lucknow and Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhinagar in Gujarat, Gwalior and Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh and New Delhi from Delhi. Atal entered active politics during the Quit India Movement. He also played an important role in Jan Sangh. He reached Parliament for the first time in 1957 by winning from Balrampur.
In 2015, Vajpayee was awarded the Bharat Ratna.
After the Emergency, the Congress was defeated and Morarji Desai became the Prime Minister. He made Vajpayee the foreign minister. During this time he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi. He was the first leader to do so. Atal is also remembered as the Prime Minister of 13 days.
In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP emerged as the largest party in the country by winning 161 seats. BJP came to power in alliance with other parties and Atal became the Prime Minister of the country for the first time. However, his government could not prove its majority and fell within 13 days. This is the shortest tenure of any Prime Minister in the history of India.
1930: The world’s first talking color cartoon is released
On August 16, 1930, Ub Iwerks released the cartoon ‘Fiddlesticks’. It was the world’s first cartoon that was color and used synchronized sound.
Ub Iwerks was part of the team that created the famous cartoon character Mickey Mouse.
This 6-minute short cartoon film was named ‘Flip the Frog – Fiddlesticks’. Its creator Ub Iwerks worked with Walt Disney. In the year 1930, he separated from Disney and started his own animation studio named Iwerks Studio. Fiddlesticks was the studio’s first production. Iwerks designed the cartoon character Frog while working with Disney.
However, Iwerks’ studio did not work. Iwerks returned to Disney in 1940, closing his studio.
The day of 16th August is remembered in history because of what other important events…
2018: 106 people died in Kerala floods. More than one and a half lakh people became homeless.
2012: Ecuador grants political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
2008: Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt created a new world record by completing the 100 meters race in 9.69 seconds at the Beijing Olympics.
1997: Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan passed away.
1904: Famous poetess of Hindi Subhadra Kumari Chauhan was born.
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