12 January IN THE HISTORY

1755 Tsarina Elisabeth established the first Russian university.   1820 The Royal Astronomical Society was founded in England.   1879 The British-Zulu War began when Lieutenant-General Chelmsford invaded Zululand.   1948 Mahatma Gandhi began his final fast.   1966 Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward premiered on television.   1974 Libya and Tunisia announced that they were merging as the Islamic Arab Republic.   2006 A stampede on the last day of Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to the city of Mecca) killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more.   2010 A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. Its aftershocks went on for days afterward and the total death toll was over 2,00,000.   2010 Chile became the first South American country to become a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). V. Shrinivas (Seenu)

11 January IN THE HISTORY

1693  Mount Etna erupted in Sicily.   1787  Titania and Oberon, the moons of Uranus, were discovered by William Herschel.   1922  Insulin was first used to treat diabetes in Leonard Thompson, a boy of 14, in Canada.   1942  Japan conquered Kuala Lumpur in Malaya.   1972  East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh.   1989  140 nations agreed to ban chemical weapons (poison gas, etc).   2008  Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, saw snowfall for the first time in a century.   2009  The MV Teratai Prima, an Indonesian ferry, capsized in the Makassar Strait due to stormy weather. More than 230 people were killed. V. Shrinivas (Seenu)

9 January IN THE HISTORY

1570  Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible killed over a thousand residents of Novgorod.   1969  The Concorde jetliner had its first test flight.   1995  Ecuador and Peru in South America were involved in a boundary dispute.   1998  Gary Kasparov defeated Viswanathan Anand to retain the world chess title.   1998  The decapitated head of the Danish statue 'The Little Mermaid' was returned.   2007  Apple Computer, Inc. unveiled the first iPhone and changed its name to Apple, Inc. to signify that the company had expanded into consumer electronics in addition to just computers. V. Shrinivas (Seenu)

8, January IN THE HISTORY

1838  The first telegraph message was sent using dots and dashes, in New Jersey. 1958  Cuban revolutionary forces captured Havana. 1968  Jacques Cousteau’s first undersea special was telecast in the U.S. 1974  The Loch Ness monster was photographed. 1979  Vietnamese troops overtook the Khmer Rouge and occupied Phnom Penh. 2004  The largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, was christened by her namesake’s granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II. 2007  A mystifying gas-like odour persisted in Manhattan, New York bringing about evacuation of several buildings and suspension of train services. 2009  An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit Costa Rica killing 15 people and injuri V. Shrinivas (Seenu)