Horse drawn tram cars were closed down in Bombay. This service was started on May 9, 1874 with 20 tram cars and 200 horses. The very first day of its run, the number of passengers carried was 451 and the amount earned was Rs. 85/- on the last day it had 1360 horses and carried 71,947 passengers and earned Rs.4,260/.
Under the leadership of Gandhi, the non-cooperation movement was launched against Lord Chelmsford. ""Firmness in truth,"" was his strategy of noncooperation and non-violence against India's Christian British rulers. Later, he resolved to wear only 'dhoti' to preserve homespun cotton and simplicity, followed with grassroots agitation. This began with renunciation of honorary titles like 'Sir' given by the British. Thereafter, it was followed by the boycott of legislatures, elections and other Government works. Foreign clothes were burnt and Khadi became a symbol of freedom. The movement was a great success despite firing and arrests. By the end of 1921, all important national leaders, except Gandhi, were in jail, along with 3000 others. However, in February 1922, at Chaurichaura, Uttar Pradesh, violence erupted and Gandhi called off the movement.
Gandhiji addresses letter to Viceroy surrendering ""Kaisar-E-Hind"" Medal, ""Zulu War"" Medal and ""Boer War"" Medal and launched the All India Non-Violent Non-Coperation
Partition of India into India and Pakistan. Power transferred. Lord Mountbatten becomes Governor General of India and Muhammed Ali Jinnah, Governor General of Pakistan.
Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya (HPKV) was established at Palampur under the aegis of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, to cater to the need of hilly areas of erstwhile Punjab.
Former Beatle George Harrison led an all-star entourage of rock talent through two sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden tonight, in a benefit for Bangladesh refugees. More than 40,000 attended the concerts, and Harrison hoped to donate $250,000 to the cause. The shows opened with sets of Indian music by sitarist Ravi Shankar, then moved through songs featuring Harrison, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and another ex-Beatle, Ringo Starr. But the evening's most ecstatic ovations were reserved for the unexpected appearance of Bob Dylan.
Air Chief Marshal Surinder Kumar Mehra PVSM, AVSM, VM, ADC., became the Air Officer Commanding, India Command. He was in this office till 31/July/1991.
The DMK condemns the BJP-led coalition Government's decision to set up a Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency and rejects the Action Taken Report on the final report of the Jain Commission with reference to Mr. M. Karunanidhi.
Computers have become a very important part of our daily life. This awesome machine changed our lives in so many ways. There are lots of interesting interesting facts about computer that I thought you would be interested in.
1. The first electronic computer ENIAC weighed more than 27 tons and took up 1800 square feet.
2. Only about 10% of the world’s currency is physical money, the rest only exists on computers.
3. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that you can write using the letters only on one row of the keyboard of your computer.
4. Doug Engelbart invented the first computer mouse in around 1964 which was made of wood.
5. There are more than 5000 new computer viruses are released every month.
6. Around 50% of all Wikipedia vandalism is caught by a single computer program with more than 90% accuracy.
7. If there was a computer as powerful as the human brain, it would be able to do 38 thousand trillion operations per second and hold more than 3580 terabytes of memory.
8. The password for the computer controls of nuclear tipped missiles of the U.S was 00000000 for eight years.
9. Approximately 70% of virus writers are said to work under contract for organized crime syndicates.
10. HP, Microsoft and Apple have one very interesting thing in common – they were all started in a garage.
11. An average person normally blinks 20 times a minute, but when using a computer he/she blinks only 7 times a minute.
12. The house where Bill Gates lives, was designed using a Macintosh computer.
13. The first ever hard disk drive was made in 1979, and could hold only 5MB of data.
14. The first 1GB hard disk drive was announced in 1980 which weighed about 550 pounds, and had a price tag of $40,000.
15. More than 80% of the emails sent daily are spams.
16. A group of 12 engineers designed IBM PC and they were called as “The Dirty Dozen”.
17. The original name of windows was Interface Manager.
18. The first microprocessor created by Intel was the 4004. It was designed for a calculator, and in that time nobody imagined where it would lead.
19. IBM 5120 from 1980 was the heaviest desktop computer ever made. It weighed about 105 pounds, not including the 130 pounds external floppy drive.
20. Genesis Device demonstration video in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the the first entirely computer generated movie sequence in the history of cinema. That studio later become Pixar.
I hope you enjoyed those computer facts as much as I did. Share them with your friends so that they can enjoy them too.
21. CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”
22. In some countries during the 70s, including the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands, cassette data storage was so popular that some radio stations would broadcast computer programs that listeners could record onto cassette and then load into their computer.
23. There is a Scandinavian company that is working on a way to translate what a dog is thinking using EEG-sensors and microcomputers. They already have a prototype available.
24. In 1988, when the American Internet was paralyzed by a computer virus, quick thinker Pål Spiller saved the Norwegian Internet by literally pulling the plug.
25. The first actual computer “bug” was a dead moth which was stuck in a Harvard Mark II computer in 1947.
26. A 15 year old hacked NASA computers and caused a 21-day shutdown of their computers. He hacked Pentagon weapons computer too…
27. In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5 MB of data
28. In 1978, Apple Corps (owned by The Beatles) sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The case settled for $80,000 along with the condition that Apple Computer should not enter the music business, and Apple Corps agreed not to enter the computer business.
29. Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is ‘Crash Course’!
30. By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.
31. Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.
32.E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.
33. For every ‘normal’ webpage, there are five porn pages.
34. In the 1980s, an IBM computer wasn’t considered 100% compatible unless it could runMicrosoft Flight Simulator*.
35. MySpace reports over 110 million registered users. Were it a country, it would be the tenth largest, just behind Mexico.
36. One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.
37. The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.
38. The first banner advertising was used in 1994.
39. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com.
40. Every minute, 10 hours of videos are uploaded on Youtube.
41. While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.
42. Google estimates that the Internet today contains about 5 million terabytes of data (1TB = 1,000GB), and claims it has only indexed a paltry 0.04% of it all! You could fit the whole Internet on just 200 million Blu-Ray disks.
43. There are about five porn pages for every ‘normal’ web-page.
44. 80% of all pictures on the internet are of naked women
45. Tim Berners-Lee coined the phrase “World Wide Web” in 1990.
46. U.S. President Bill Clinton’s inauguration in January 1997 was the first to be webcast.
47. Google uses an estimated 15 billion kWh of electricity per year, more than most countries. However, google generates a lot of their own power with their solar panels.
48. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was a college drop out.
Planning a visit to the Taj Mahal? If you don't know already, there may be a few questions running through your mind like who built the Taj, why was it built, when's the best time to visit, the timings, the fee and a whole lot of stuff that you'd want to know before you pay a visit to the Taj. Don't worry at all, as this section on "Taj Mahal facts" will provide you with a few fast facts to up your knowledge along with the basic queries that you want to be answered as soon as possible. Read on to get some quick information about Taj Mahal and Agra. And once read, don't waste time. Just pack your bags, book your tickets and pay a visit to the world's most spectacular monument that epitomizes love at par.
We know that the Taj Mahal is one of the seven wonders of the world. We know who built it and for whom. We know it is the pride of our nation, India. We know a lot about it. But we don't know a lot of things about it.
Let's look at some of them:
Fast Facts Year of Construction: 1631 Completed In: 1653 Time Taken: 22 years Built By: Shah Jahan Dedicated to: Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Bano Begum), the wife of Shah Jahan Location: Agra (Uttar Pradesh), India Building Type: Islamic tomb Architecture: Mughal (Combination of Persian, Islamic and Indian architecture style) Architect: Ustad Ahmad Lahauri Cost of Construction: 32 crore rupees Number of workers: 20,000 Highlights: One of the Seven Wonders of the World; A UNESCO World Heritage Site Timings: Sunrise to Sunset (Friday closed) Fee: Rs 750 (Foreign Tourists) Rs 510 (Citizens of SAARC & BIMSTEC Countries) Rs 20 (Domestic Indian Tourists) No Entry Fee for children below 15 years of age (Domestic or Foreigner)
Interesting Facts Of Taj Mahal
Before his accession to the throne, Shah Jahan was popularly known as Prince Khurram.
Shah Jahan fell in love with the beautiful Arjumand Bano Begum and married her, making her his third wife.
Arjumand Bano Begum was christened by Shah Jahan as Mumtaz Mahal, meaning the “Chosen One Of The Palace” or “Jewel of the Palace”.
Shah Jahan lost Mumtaz Mahal, when she died giving birth to their 14h child.
For the transportation of the construction materials, more than 1,000 elephants were employed.
As many as 28 different varieties of semi-precious and precious stones were used to adorn the Taj with exquisite inlay work.
Depending on what time of the day it is and whether or not there’s moon at night, Taj Mahal appears to be of different color every time. Some even believe that this changing pattern of colors depict different moods of a woman.
Passages from Quran have been used as decorative elements throughout the complex.
On the sides of the actual tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, 99 names of Allah can be found as calligraphic inscriptions.
Taj Mahal was built in stages, with the plinth and the tomb taking up roughly 15 years. Building of minarets, mosque, jawab, and gateway took additional 5 years to be completed.
Different types of marbles used in construction of Taj Mahal were brought over from many different regions & countries: Rajasthan, Punjab, China, Tibet, Afghanistan, Srilanka, & Arabia.
Many precious stones and Lapis Lazuli (a semi-precious stone) were ripped off from its walls by the Britishers during the Indian rebellion of 1857.
Taj Mahal attracts 2-4 million visitors annually with over 200,000 from overseas.
1. There is a small hole on the ceiling of the main hall perpendicularly above the tombstone of Mumtaz Mahal .
According to stories it is the work of an artisan who decided to sabotage Shah Jehan 's dream of creating a masterpiece after he came to know about his decision to amputate all the artisan's arms. So the Taj is not as flawless as we would like to think it is.
2. The ASI had to conceal the Taj during WW-II with a huge scaffold to misguide bombers.
One of the most majestic man-made creations, the Taj was covered with a huge scaffold in the 20th Century so that it looked like a stockpile of bamboo to bombers. Then d uring the India- Pakistan war in 1971, and after 9/11, it was protected by camouflaging it with a green cloth.
3. Ever wondered what was Shah Jehan's first reaction on beholding the great Taj?
"Should guilty seek asylum here,Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,All his past sins are to be washed away.The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.In this world this edifice has been made;To display thereby the creator's glory."
4. The story of the arms of all artisans being amputated by is probably a myth because the architect worked on other projects.
The architect who lead the team of architects to build the Taj mahal laid the foundation of the Red fort too. Ustad Ahmed Lahauri, was probably the leader of the architect's team. Seeing that Shah Jehan commissioned him to work on a project after Taj means he was clearly using both his arms!
5. The minarets were built tilting outwards to protect the Taj from calamities like earthquakes.
If you observe carefully, you'll find that the four minarets are tilting outwards. Thi s was done so that in the event of a natural disaster, like earthquake, the minars won't fall on the main ' gumbad ' or Dome, thereby ensuring the safety of the Tomb.
. A temple was built for the conman Natwarlal, who sold theTaj Mahal repeatedly.
Natwarlal who repeatedly sold the Taj Mahal , has a temple on his name. The people of his native village Bangra in Bihar decided to put up a statue of him as his monument, at the place, where his house once stood.
7. The foundation of Taj Mahal would have eroded years ago ifYamuna wasn't there.
Taj's foundation is made of timber which is not supposed to be long lasting. T he wood should weaken overtime and crumble owing to rot and ruin, but that did not happen because the wood is kept strong and moist by the Yamuna river.
8. The interior of Taj is capable of blinding any goblin with its grand inlay work.
28 kinds of rare, semi precious and precious stones were used for inlay work in the Taj Mahal . They were sourced from Sri Lanka, Tibet, China and of course several places in India. During the British rule, the monument was violated several times because of these stones and it was only in the late nineteenth century that restoration work was taken over.
10. How expensive was it for Shah Jehan to build the Tajexactly?
Shah Jehan spent about 32 million rupees during the years 1632-1653 on this great architectural venture. Today that amount would be close to 1,062,834,098 USD.
11. The fountains have a special feature to ensure uniform water pressure in the fountains.
To ensure uniform and undiminished water pressure in the fountains, the fountain pipes were not connected directly with the copper pipes feeding them. Instead a copper pot was provided under each fountain pipe so that the water first fills the pot and then only rises at the same time in the fountains. The pressure in the pots is maintained and so in the fountains.
14. Shah Jehan wanted to build another Taj Mahal , a black Taj Mahal .
Emperor Shah Jehan is widely believed to have desired a mausoleum for himself similar to that of the one he had built in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal . The writings of the European traveller, Tavernier mention that Shah Jehan began to build his own tomb on the other side of the river but could not complete it as he was deposed by his own sonAurangzeb .
The plinth of the tomb is 2'10" on an average but varies all around. T his convexity has deliberately been given to the plinth in the center of each arch. The architect fully anticipated the apparent size which a finial would present from such a great height. If this wasn't the way then the building would have appeared as if it were falling down.
18. Shah Jehan's daughter Jahanara Begum refused a grand burial like the Taj .
She said:
Allah is the Living, the Sustaining. Let no one cover my grave except with greenery, For this very grass suffices as a tomb cover for the poor. The mortal simplistic Princess Jahanara, Disciple of the Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti, Daughter of Shah Jahan the Conqueror May Allah illuminate his proof.
19. An American Grammy Award-winning artist named himselfTaj mahal.
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award-winning Blues musician.
