11th February 2016
India defeated the mighty West Indies to win the Cricket World Cup in 1983. India was treated as rank underdogs so much so that before the beginning of the final, the stakes in favour of India were declared as 1 in 66.
11th February 2016
When the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev planned to spend thirteen days in the United States in 1959, he made two special requests. One was to see the Disneyland, and the other was to meet the Hollywood actor John Wayne. Sadly, he was barred from visiting Disneyland on account of the cold war. However, he did meet John Wayne and admired his movies. Later he sent Wayne a giant crate full of Russian Vodka for Christmas.
11th February 2016
In the 1950s, Walt Disney Productions decided to have a theme park with four sections: Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland and Tomorrowland. Since Tomorrowland was going to be futuristic, it would contain, in the words of Walt Disney, ‘a living blueprint of the future’. The Senior Producer Ward Kimball involved Heinz Haber, a specialist in the emerging field of space medicine, Wernher von Braun, the rocket scientist and Willy Ley, a famous rocket historian.
11th February 2016
In Italian, mala means ‘bad’ and aria means ‘air’. Thus the word malaria got coined basically to mean ‘bad air’.
11th February 2016
Abraham Ortelius was a Flemish cartographer. He published the first modern atlas on 20 May 1570 and named it Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the world). He based his work on the maps of 87 cartographers. His map was comprehensive and easy to use.
11th February 2016
Michelangelo’s Pieta is in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. Pieta is the sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the lifeless body of Jesus on her lap. In 1499 Michelangelo carved Pieta when he was 24 years old, and it is the only one he ever signed. On 21 May 1972 Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian-born Australian Geologist, attacked it with a hammer shouting: ‘I am Jesus Christ!’ With several blows, he removed the Virgin’s arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids.
