Make Every Moment in Life Count.

The Art of Life.

I am...

Ella Fitzgerald's 96th Birthday.

Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella", was an American jazz vocalist with a vocal range spanning three octaves (D♭3 to D♭6). She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.

Fitzgerald was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook.Over the course of her 59-year recording career, she sold 40 million copies of her 70-plus albums.

She made her singing debut at 17 on November 21, 1934, at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. She pulled in a weekly audience at the Apollo and won the opportunity to compete in one of the earliest of its famous "Ashe opted to sing instead in the style of Connee Boswell. She sang Boswell's "Judy" and "The Object of My Affection," a song recorded by the Boswell Sisters, and won the first prize of US$25.00.

In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. She began singing regularly with Webb's Orchestra through 1935 at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. Fitzgerald recorded several hit songs with them, including "Love and Kisses" and "(If You Can't Sing It) You'll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)". But it was her 1938 version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", a song she co-wrote, that brought her wide public acclaim.

Fitzgerald shaking hands with President Ronald Reagan after performing in the White House, 1981

She won 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.

Source: Wikipedia.

To Handle...

Gideon Sundback's 133rd Birthday.

Gideon Sundback (April 24, 1880 – June 21, 1954) was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper.

Sundback made several advances in the development of the zipper between 1906 and 1914, while working for companies that later evolved into Talon, Inc. He built upon the previous work of other engineers such as Elias Howe, Max Wolff, and Whitcomb Judson.

Drawing of the 1914 patent filing

The patent for the "Separable Fastener" was issued in 1917. Gideon Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new device. The "S-L" or "scrapless" machine took a special Y-shaped wire and cut scoops from it, then punched the scoop dimple and nib, and clamped each scoop on a cloth tape to produce a continuous zipper chain. Within the first year of operation, Sundback's machinery was producing a few hundred feet (around 100 meters) of fastener per day.

The name zipper was created in 1923 by B.F. Goodrich, who used the device on their new boots.



Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper. Lightning Fastener Company, one early manufacturer of the zipper, was based in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Gideon Sundback was honored by inclusion in the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on the development of the zipper.

Google's Doodle  on the 132nd Anniversary of Gideon Sundback.

Source:Wikipedia

Attitude.

11 Painful things.

Happy Earthday.

Earth Day is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Earth Day is observed on April 22 each year. The April 22 date was designated as International Mother Earth Day by a consensus resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2009. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries every year.

The name and concept of Earth Day was pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. He proposed March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

The genesis of Earth Day is credited to Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. After witnessing the ravages of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, and inspired by the student anti-war movement, he called for an environmental teach-in, later called "Earth Day", to be held on Wednesday, April 22, 1970. More than 20 million people participated that year, and now Earth Day is observed on April 22 each year by more than one billion people and many national governments in 192 countries.Earth Day appears on calendars around the world.

Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage, Earth Day activities in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970, this 20th Anniversary was waged with stronger marketing tools, greater access to television and radio, and multimillion-dollar budgets.

Earth Day 2000 combined the ambitious spirit of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. This was the first year that Earth Day used theInternet as its principal organizing tool, and it proved invaluable domestically and internationally.

To turn Earth Day into a sustainable annual event rather than one that occurred every 10 years, Nelson and Bruce Anderson, New Hampshire's lead organizer in 1990, formed Earth Day USA. Building on the momentum created by thousands of community organizers around the world, Earth Day USA coordinated the next five Earth Day celebrations through 1995, including the launch of EarthDay.org. Following the 25th Anniversary in 1995, the coordination baton was handed to Earth Day Network.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focusing on global warming and pushing forclean energy. The April 22 Earth Day in 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 came around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Events varied: A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., USA.

Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the activities in thousands of places like Kiev, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; Tuvalu; Manila, Philippines; Togo; Madrid, Spain; London; and New York.

According to Nelson, the moniker "Earth Day" was "an obvious and logical name" suggested by "a number of people" in the fall of 1969.

Source: Wikipedia

Logic & Imagination

30 famous companies named after their founders.

Cadbury
Founder: John Cadbury
Cadbury was founded almost 200 years ago. In 1824, John Cadbury opened a grocer’s shop and among other things, he sold cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he prepared himself using a pestle and mortar. The Cadbury manufacturing business was born in 1831, when John Cadbury decided to start producing on a commercial scale.

Tata Group
Founder: Jamsetji Tata
Jamsetji Tata began with a textile mill in central India in the 1870s. His powerful vision inspired the steel and power industries in India. Today, the company encompasses seven business sectors and has operations in more than 80 countries across six continents.

Horlicks
Founders: William and James Horlick
Horlicks is 138 years old. It is the drink's rich history that has made it a much loved part of the world. The company was founded by two British brothers, William and James Horlick. Both brothers emigrated to America and in 1873 the company J&W Horlicks was founded in Chicago to manufacture a malted milk drink.

Bacardi
Founder: Don Facundo Bacardí Massó
Family-owned Bacardi was founded more than 150 years ago in Santiago de Cuba, on February 4, 1862, and employs nearly 6,000 people and sells in more than 150 countries globally. Facundo Bacardí revolutionized rum as a spirit and the rum-making process by creating a smooth, light-bodied spirit – what the world now knows BACARDÍ rum.

Colgate-Palmolive
Founder: William Colgate
In 1806, William Colgate starts a starch, soap and candle business on Dutch Street in New York City. Upon the death of the founder, his son, Samuel Colgate reorganized the company as Colgate & Company. In 1873 Colgate introduced toothpaste in jars.

Godrej Group

Founders: Ardeshir Godrej and Pirojsha Godrej
Ardeshir Godrej, lawyer-turned-locksmith, was a persistent inventor and a strong visionary who could see the spark in the future. His inventions, manufactured by his brother Pirojsha Godrej, were the foundation of today’s Godrej empire. Today, it is considered to be one of India’s most trusted brands.

Baskin-Robbins
Founders: Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins
Nearly three-quarters of a century ago, two brothers-in-law shared a dream to create an innovative ice cream store that would be a neighborhood gathering place for families. They started out in separate ventures but this concept eventually grew into Baskin-Robbins. It wasn’t until 1953 that Baskin-Robbins became official.

Kirloskar Group
Founder: Laxmanrao. K. Kirloskar
Founded in 1888, the Kirloskar group is India's leading, multi-product, multi-location, diversified engineering conglomerate with annual sales exceeding $1.5 billion. Today, the Kirloskar Group exports to over 70 countries covering most of Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe.

Bausch & Lomb
Founders: John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb
Bausch & Lomb traces its roots to 1853, when John Jacob Bausch, a German immigrant, set up a tiny optical goods shop in New York. To keep his business going he borrowed $60 from his good friend, Henry Lomb. Bausch promised that if the business grew, Lomb would be made a full partner. In the early years, Bausch + Lomb manufactured revolutionary rubber eyeglass frames as well as a variety of optical products.

 

Mahindra Group
Founders: J.C. Mahindra, K.C. Mahindra and Ghulam Mohammed
In 1945, two enterprising brothers named J.C. Mahindra and K.C. Mahindra joined forces with Ghulam Mohammed and started Mahindra & Mohammed as a steel company in Mumbai. Now, after 65 years, the company is one of the leaders in utility vehicles, tractors, and information technology. It also has a significant presence in financial services, leisure and hospitality, engineering, trade, and logistics.

Ben & Jerry’s
Founders: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
What began over 30 years ago with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield creating otherworldly ice cream flavors has turned into a tastebud-boggling odyssey of Ben & Jerry's desserts served around the world. With a combined life savings of $8000 and a bank loan of $4000, they leased an old gas station building in Burlington, Vermont, and opened for business on May 5, 1978.

ArcelorMittal
Founder: Lakshmi N Mittal
ArcelorMittal is the successor to Mittal Steel, a business originally set up in 1976 by Lakshmi N Mittal, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors. ArcelorMittal was created through the merger of Arcelor and Mittal Steel in 2006.

Arcelor was created in February 2002 through the merger of Arbed (Luxembourg) founded in 1911, Aceralia (Spain) and Usinor (France). Arcelor also had major steel production facilities in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Brazil and Argentina.

Tupperware Brands
Founder: Earl Tupper
Tupperware brand products made their debut in 1946. Just prior to its consumer introduction in 1946, inventor Earl Tupper's plastics-like materials of many manufacturers were dedicated to the war effort. For 60 years, Tupperware brand products have closely followed rollercoaster trends from the suburban movement to the 60's feminist revolution to '90s "cocooning" continually adding a unique organizational touch to the lives and kitchens across the nation.

Wrigley Company
Founder: William Wrigley Jr.
in 1893, William Wrigley Jr. introduced a new gum he called Juicy Fruit. And so began the world's most popular and successful chewing gum business. Wrigley is a recognized leader in confections with a wide range of product through world-famous brands – including Extra, Orbit, Doublemint, and 5 chewing gums, as well as confectionery brands Skittles, Starburst, Altoids and Life Savers.

Bajaj Group
Founder: Jamanalal Bajaj
Founded by the freedom fighter and philanthropist Jamanalal Bajaj, the Bajaj Group is one of the most respected and renowned business houses of India. It started around 80 years ago with a sugar factory in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh. And today, the Bajaj Group has a leading presence with diversified interest in the sugar and growing Infrastructure sector including power, coal mining and real estate, FMCG, and Ethanol.

Tiffany & Co
Founder: Charles Lewis Tiffany
Behind the luster and renown of Tiffany & Co. is a moving story of risk-taking, thrilling discoveries and staunch dedication to quality and craftsmanship. It is also the story of the rise of American wealth and society, whose ideal of luxury was shaped by one man, Charles Lewis Tiffany.

 

Gillette
Founder: King C Gillette
The Gillette Company was founded by King Camp Gillette in 1901 as a safety razor manufacturer. Gillette is a brand of men's safety razors, among other personal care products owned by Procter & Gamble.

Hinduja Group
Founder: Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja
The Group Founder, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, always believed that his duty is to work, so he can give. Today, the Hinduja Group has become one of the largest diversified groups in the world spanning all the continents. The Group employs over 65,000 people and has offices in many key cities of the world and all the major cities in India.

The Hershey Company

Founder: Milton S. Hershey
The story of Hershey's begins with the tale of one determined pioneer: Milton S. Hershey. He is not only known for the delicious milk chocolate bar that bears his name, but for his philanthropy and generosity which touches the lives of thousands.

Mc Donald’s
Founders: Ray Kroc, Richard and Maurice McDonald
Ray Kroc was the exclusive distributor of a milk shake maker called the Multimixer. Meanwhile, two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald owned and ran a hamburger restaurant in San Bernadino, California, in the 1950s. Ray Kroc met up with them and acquired the franchising right from them to run McDonald's restaurants. In 1955, Ray Kroc founded the McDonald's Corporation.

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories
Founder: Dr. K. Anji Reddy
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories has been credited with turning the Indian bulk drug industry from dependence on imports in the mid 1980s to self reliance in the mid 1990s and finally into the export-oriented industry that it is today. In 1993, it was the first company to take up drug discovery research in India. In April 2001 Dr Reddy’s Labs became the first Asian pharmaceutical company outside Japan to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Kellogg Company
Founder: Will Keith Kellogg
Through a career that began with selling brooms and peaked with the invention of breakfast cereal, W.K. Kellogg became one of the world’s wealthiest men. He chose to use his millions to create in 1930 the Foundation that bore his name and launched a legacy that would serve humanity for generations to come. Today, Kellogg is a multinational food company that produces cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries and cereal bars among other things.

Nestlé
Founder: Henri Nestlé
Nestle history begins back in 1866. In Vevey, Switzerland, founder Henri Nestlé, a German pharmacist, launched his Farine lactée, a combination of cow’s milk, wheat flour and sugar, saving the life of a neighbour’s child. Nestlé's products include baby food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, pet foods and snacks.

Jindal Group
Founder: B.C. Jindal
The group was founded in 1952 by B.C. Jindal as a manufacturer of steel pipes and pipe fittings. Since then, the group has diversified into the manufacture of polyester film, BOPP film, photographic goods, cold rolled steel strips, galvanized sheets and metallised films among other things. As one of India's leading business conglomerates, the Jindal Group is engaged in diverse portfolio of businesses which have achieved rapid growth over the years.

Swarovski
Founder: Daniel Swarovski
In 1892, founder Daniel Swarovski invented a revolutionary machine that allows crystals to be cut more precisely than with existing manual methods. Today, the Swarovski Crystal range includes crystal glass sculptures and miniatures, jewelry and couture, home decor, and chandeliers.

Aditya Birla Group
Founder: Ghanshyam Das Birla
The group was founded by Ghanshyam Das Birla and today operates in over 33 countries with more than 133,000 employees worldwide. The group interests in sectors such as viscose staple fibre, metals, cement, viscose filament yarn, branded apparel, carbon black, chemicals, fertilisers, insulators, financial services, telecom, BPO and IT services.

Bose Corporation
Founder: Amar Bose
Bose Corporation was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, then professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Today, Bose Corporation is an American privately held corporation that specializes in audio equipment.

McAfee
Founder: John McAfee
McAfee is an American global computer security software company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and the world's largest dedicated security technology company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. The company was founded in 1987 as McAfee Associates, named after its founder John McAfee, who resigned from the company in 1994.

 

TVS Motors
Founder: T. V. Sundaram Iyengar
From its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century, TVS Group has grown to become the largest manufacturer and distributor of auto components in India. TV Sundaram Iyengar and Sons is the holding company of the TVS Group; the founder was T. V. Sundaram Iyengar.The largest and most visible subsidiary is TVS Motors. TVS Group, headquartered in Chennai, is an automotive conglomerate company, specialized in manufacturing of two-wheeler, three-wheeler, auto-electricals components, high tensile fasteners, die casting products, brakes, wheels, and tyres among other things.

 

Philips
Founders: Anton and Gerard Philips
The foundations of Philips were laid in 1891 when Anton and Gerard Philips established Philips & Co. in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The company begun manufacturing carbon-filament lamps and by the turn of the century, had become one of the largest producers in Europe. Today, it is one of the largest electronics companies in the world and employs around 122,000 people across more than 60 countries.

 

  Source:  Yahoo!

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Charlie Chaplin's 124th Birthday.

              Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was a British comic actor and filmmaker who rose to fame in the silent era.

His portrait .1920

        

Signature

     He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from a child in the Victorian era to close to his death at the age of 88.
             Raised in London, Chaplin's childhood was defined by poverty and hardship. He was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine; his father was absent, and his mother was committed to a mental asylum.
             Chaplin began performing from a young age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. Chaplin was scouted by the film industry, and made his first appearances in 1914 with Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the most famous men in the world.
                In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, giving him complete control over his films.
His Films:
The Kid (1921)
 A Woman of Paris (1923),  
The Gold Rush (1925), and  
The Circus (1928).
 He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue.
Chaplin became increasingly political and his next film, The Great Dictator (1940), satirised Adolf Hitler. The 1940s was a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. 

Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century".

Source : Wikipedia

India's First Passenger Train.

First Rail

Railways were introduced to India in 1853 from Bombay to Thane, and by the time of India's independence in 1947 they had grown to forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit—Indian Railways to form one of the largest networks in the world.

A plan for a rail system in India was first put forward in 1832. The first rail line of the Indian sub-continent came up near Chintadripet Bridge (presently in Chennai) in Madras Presidency in 1836 as an experimental line.In 1837, a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) long rail line was established between Red Hills and stone quarries near St. Thomas Mount. In 1844, the Governor-General of India Lord Hardinge allowed private entrepreneurs to set up a rail system in India. The East India Company (and later the British Government) encouraged new railway companies backed by private investors under a scheme that would provide land and guarantee an annual return of up to five percent during the initial years of operation. The companies were to build and operate the lines under a 99 year lease, with the government having the option to buy them earlier.

Two new railway companies, Great Indian Peninsular Railway (GIPR) and East Indian Railway (EIR), were created in 1853-54 to construct and operate two 'experimental' lines near Bombay and Calcutta respectively. The first train in India had become operational on 22 December 1851 for localised hauling of canal construction material in Roorkee.A year and a half later, on 16 April 1853, the first passenger train service was inaugurated between Bori Bunder in Bombay and Thane. Covering a distance of 34 kilometres (21 mi), it was hauled by three locomotives, Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan.This was soon followed by opening of the first passenger railway line in North India between Allahabad and Kanpur on March 3, 1859.

 Source: Wikipedia

Leonhard Euler 306th Birthday.

Leonhard Euler(15 April 1707 – 18 September 1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist.

He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, and astronomy.
 He is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century, and one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived.
Euler is the only mathematician to have two numbers named after him: the immensely important Euler's Number in calculus, e, approximately equal to 2.71828, and the Euler-Mascheroni Constant γ (gamma) sometimes referred to as just "Euler's constant", approximately equal to 0.57721. It is not known whether γ is rational or irrational.
Euler is well known in analysis for his frequent use and development of power series, the expression of functions as sums of infinitely many terms, such as

A geometric interpretation of Euler's formula

Honours:

1957 stamp of the former Soviet Union commemorating the 250th birthday of Euler. The text says: 250 years from the birth of the great mathematician, academician Leonhard Euler.

Old Swiss 10 Franc banknote honoring Euler

Stamp of the former German Democratic Republic honoring Euler on the 200th anniversary of his death. Across the centre it shows his polyhedral formula, nowadays written as v − e + f = 2.

Source: Wikipedia