Bleed Blue

If they ever tell my story, let them say i walked with giants.

Men rise and fall like the winter weed, but some names will never die.

Let them say that i lived in the land of Mahatma Gandhi - the tamer of forces..., let them say, that i lived in the times of Team India and Mahendar Singh Dhoni!

2011 is historic!

Many congratulations to Team India!

Footnotes:

Kudos to Team India for the historic win in the World Cup 2011.

These aforesaid lines, in the post, are originally from the movie Troy, in memory the timeless icons of Hector, Achilles, Odysseus and Priam.

The Wizard of Menlo Park

American inventor, scientist, pioneer and businessman, Thomas Edison was born on this day in 1847.

Of his many significant contributions to the world, perhaps a lasting legacy for all time to come would be the creation of General Electric, which is easily among the most admired corporate organizations in the world.

A proponent of excellence and values, GE is today across a hundred countries, over 3,00,000 people strong with revenues of over 160 billion USD.

Having been a part of GE, myself, the iconic words that "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work," have found prominence in my life, no end, and today, Redefining Oblivion salutes this great soul for what he was and for how his vision continues to inspire millions across the globe. 

The First Session

By some measure, though small, and particularly debatable in the context of the present day, given a large measure of visible lopsidedness, today in history has been witness to perhaps the very first attempts to further a culture of democratic coexistence aimed at achieving a sense of peace and mutual respect in the geo-political scenario that was.

This day, in the year 1946, the United Nations Security Council held its very first session.

Presently, though the situation is far from desired, with many raging battles ongoing, there is a sense of hope that collectively, we, as mature human beings, empowered by reason and discretion, will come to understand the importance of diversity and unity in the same sense that we respect and value ourselves, at least for the sake of our posterity that absolutely needs a supreme sense of security to live in ways that we have always envisioned and endeavoured for our own selves.

Short bursts of spontaneity perhaps, but lengthened implications, well into timelessness? Well, time will tell, and most certainly, only hope will fuel.

Celebrating Calvin & Hobbes

To describe childhood as having been magical is an understatement. In truth, there can be no possible description of childhood! And for those of us who have been fortunate, thanks to a bankable familial structure that remains even now intricately woven around us providing unending comfort and security, yesteryears are moments that are cherished for all time to come!

This post in particular is an articulation of celebrating childhood, or rather the child in us that we eventually come suppress as a result of a failed recognition of what we need to be, as opposed to what it is that we truly need to be, the answer being happy!

So for me, childhood stands singularly apart for one very good and big reason, apart from, of course, the many other wonderful things that went into making it. That one factor, or if I may say avenue, of unending happiness and joy came from William Boyd "Bill" Watterson's epic creation of Calvin & Hobbes, which has to my soul, by far, been the most appealing piece of pictorial literature bearing supreme levels of intellectual excellence, yet so elementary and cheerful. That feeling of bliss, I'm sure you understand, is timeless and shall continue forever! And as this momentously fabulous creation has come to turn 25 (though having ceased to be renewed in 1995), I thought it apt to make a mention of how my childhood has been a celebration of times, thanks to this timeless wonder!

Boy, I cannot tell you how much I admire anthropomorphism, in the way it should be - Just like how it has been depicted as in the case of Hobbes! But just before I close this post, I'll leave you some splendid lines from the mannerisms of an avant-garde post-modern icon, Calvin! :-)

I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.

Pretty convenient how every time I build character, Dad saves a couple hundred dollars

Are you suggesting that this appliance didn't aggravate me with malice aforethought?

Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test.

If warped values are the price of a vicarious thrill, so be it!

I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world

These are interesting times. We don't trust the government, we don't trust the legal system, we don't trust the media, and we don't trust each other! We've undermined all authority, and with it, the basis for replacing it! It's like a six-year-old's dream come true!

If it was completely different, school would be great.

Leave it to a girl to take the fun out of sex discrimination.

Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?

As a math atheist, I should be excused from this.

This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ..

I go to school, but I never learn what I want to know.

In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.

That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible.Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.

I like maxims that don't encourage behavior modification.

I wanted to be a neo-deconstructivist but Mom wouldn't let me

There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

The Net

Today, the Internet is seen as just another tool for exchange of ideas, communication, social networking and a whole lot of other cutting-edge applications such as tele-medicine, banking & financial services, remote sensing and so on!

It was on this day in 1979 that the Internet first acquired commercial viability, thanks to the efforts of CompuServe, thereby enabling and supporting what is today a robust and staggering user base, that is now an estimated 1,966,514,816 strong!

Perhaps, even more enormous is the social impact brought about by the Internet! One cannot help but concede that this is indeed a revolution of sorts, quietly, yet surely, changing the lives of people in ways that cannot quite be fathomed!

Footnotes:

Internet users account for 28% of the world's population.

Source: Wikipedia - List of countries by number of Internet users

Remembering Dr. Oppenheimer

Very few have, perhaps, endured the dichotomies of life as has J. Robert Oppenheimer, going from an absolutely iconic state to tragic infamy, in a succession of events that can at best be described as unfortunate and fateful!

Presently reading the biography of who is best known as the father of the American atom bomb, I'm given an opportunity to understand the mind of Dr. Oppenheimer, famously known for its complexities, as baffling as mathematical convolutions or the laws governing thermodynamics in physics! But the remarkably articulate and factual work of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, free from any form of prejudice, or opinionated distortions, usually adopted by many a narrator, is a true classic, having arrived upon after a great deal of painstaking research compiled with immense meticulousness and detail for the reader to assimilate.

Titled American Prometheus - The triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, this booker prize winning work not only details, in outstanding simplicity, the life and times of Dr. Oppenheimer but also introduces the reader to a socio-political mindset, prevalent during what was perhaps the beginning of divisions in the world, as blocs, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, created purely on an ideological basis - a state of alignment that would last for decades, culminating into the Cold War.

Reading this book is quite like living a situation that is not very uncommon in today's world of speed success that dictates entities to plot against one another in a feverish attempt to 'climb the ladder,' of which, here, the protagonist falls victim to! I can safely say that this book is more than just an account of a person and his actions, or inactions as many historians would like to remark! To me, it is nothing short of an almanac of history, one that unmistakably outlines very many facts about how history was shaped and thereafter written and hence recognizable in the form that we know today!

Footnotes:

It was on this day in 1932 that the American physicist Carl David Anderson announced the discovery of the Positron, a fact earlier theorized by Dr. Oppenheimer in his paper titled "On the theory of electrons and protons."

Also on this day in 1939, scientists Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd wrote to then US President Franklin Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. Dr. Oppenheimer would later serve as scientific director of the project.

The Russell–Einstein Manifesto

55 years ago, on this day, in London, a note was issued, urging world leaders to recognize and understand the threat of nuclear weapons in the hope of nuclear disarmament. It was signed by, among others, as the name itself suggests, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.

Today, the cold war is history, but if estimations are to believed, there exist about 23000 active nuclear weapons, in the form of either missiles that can be launched within a matter of minutes, or strategic weapons placed in different nations. One can seek consolation from the fact that their numbers have fallen from the total of 65000 active such weapons known to have existed in the year 1985.

Reduction in the number of weapons of mass destruction simply isn't a solution, for the threat nevertheless looms large. For instance, a gun with 3 rounds poses just about the same threat to life as another fully loaded one. Treaties such as START, SALT and the NPT, among others seek the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, however, they are not without flaws and bias!

The last time the world came dangerously close a nuclear conflict was in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, nations and people have come to work closely with one another thanks very much to the politics of diplomacy. Yet, the threat of a dirty bomb is ever present, thanks to a rabid proliferation network established by the likes of A. Q. Khan with the complicity of intelligence services of China and Pakistan, to name a few that is!

Therefore, E. L. Doctorow couldn't have been more right when, at the thick of the cold war, he wrote, that "it was first our weaponry and then our diplomacy, and now it is our economy! How can we suppose that something so monstrously powerful would not, after forty years, compose our identity?"

Footnotes:

Full text of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto

Remembering Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore, Chitto jetha bhayashunyo (Where the mind is without fear), Gitanjali, 1910

The grand doyen of Indian literature, music and poetry, educationist, spiritualist, philosopher and Nobel Laureate, respected world over as a man whose creations have no equals, was born on this day in 1861.

Today, as Redefining Oblivion pays respectful homage to this unequivocal polymath, I have chosen to post some of his most celebrated words that have hence become iconic, timeless and supremely meaningful.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come

Age considers; youth ventures

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it

Facts are many, but the truth is one

In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them

Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough

The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence

Remembering Rwanda

April 1994 marked a gruesome turn of events in a relatively quiet Rwanda.

The assassination of Presidents Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi sparked a cycle of violence that has since come to be known as The Rwandan Genocide, acts of unspeakably appalling horror that continue to haunt people of the entire world, let alone a nation!

I first heard of this heinous outbreak on The World this Week, a focus program by the NDTV. Prannoy Roy and the Late Appan Menon were bringing us some very updated but awfully uncomfortable images and data pertaining to the merciless killings of Tutsi natives and all those who were inclined to a peaceful Rwanda.

But this post is not to gloss over unpardonable actions of a few barbaric cowards because of whom millions in the hope and quest for a peaceful life were cut down, neither is this to serve as an almanac of events that dominated the troubled Rwandan social system and government apparatus. All of that simply cannot be summed in one mere blog-post!

This post has been made to pay rich tributes to the persons of Pierantonio Costa, Antonia Locatelli, Jacqueline Mukansonera, Paul Rusesabagina, Carl Wilkens and André Sibomana, all of whom have well beyond their human capacities performed feats that would equal in measure and will only to acts of God. In their concerted efforts to halt the genocide they saved and subsequently sheltered hundreds of Tutsi people and brought upon themselves great danger. But for the remarkable efforts of these wonderful people, humanity would never have known the intricacies of dignity, fellowship, brotherhood and compassion, all of which were grievously periled in the midst of the genocide.

The following video, titled One Million Voices is a reflection of hope in the backdrop of war and ruin in Rwanda. It is an adaption from the now popular movie titled Hotel Rwanda. Take a good look at it and do follow the words of the soundtrack, which will surely move you a great deal. It is hoped that the likes of the Rwandan Genocide do not find place in our times ever again, for the sake of our children who deserve nothing less than a world built on the foundations of peace, happiness and compassion! We owe that bit to them - a great deal!



Footnotes:

As is always the case in the aftermath of such events, there has been no consensus with regards to the number of people who perished during the genocide in Rwanda.  The official figures published by the Rwandan Government estimated the number of victims of the genocide as 1,174,000 in merely 100 days of violence. That accounted for 10,000 people murdered every day, 400 every hour and 7 every minute!

The wounds will live on, for more than a lifetime!

Marathon of Hope

October 15, 1979

My name is Terry Fox. I am 21 years old, and I am an amputee. I lost my right leg two-and-a-half years ago due to cancer. The night before my amputation, my former basketball coach brought me a magazine with an article on an amputee who ran in the New York Marathon. It was then I decided to meet this new challenge head on and not only overcome my disability, but conquer it in such a way that I could never look back and say it disabled me.

But I soon realized that that would only be half my quest, for as I went through the 16 months of the physically and emotionally draining ordeal of chemotherapy, I was rudely awakened by the feelings that surrounded and coursed through the cancer clinic. There were faces with the brave smiles, and the ones who had given up smiling. There were feelings of hopeful denial, and the feelings of despair.

My quest would not be a selfish one. I could not leave knowing these faces and feelings would still exist, even though I would be set free from mine. Somewhere the hurting must stop....and I was determined to take myself to the limit for this cause.

From the beginning the going was extremely difficult, and I was facing chronic ailments foreign to runners with two legs in addition to the common physical strains felt by all dedicated athletes.

But these problems are now behind me, as I have either out-persisted or learned to deal with them. I feel strong not only physically, but more important, emotionally. Soon I will be adding one full mile a week, and coupled with weight training I have been doing, by next April I will be ready to achieve something that for me was once only a distant dream reserved for the world of miracles – to run across Canada to raise money for the fight against cancer.

The running I can do, even if I have to crawl every last mile.

We need your help. The people in cancer clinics all over the world need people who believe in miracles.

I am not a dreamer, and I am not saying that this will initiate any kind of definitive answer or cure to cancer. But I believe in miracles. I have to.

Footnotes:

It was on this day, in 1980, that Terrence "Terry" Stanley Fox, a Canadian athlete and cancer research activist began his Marathon of Hope. He has, since, become an icon of superhuman stature! His marathon raised $1.7 million and his legacy continues to evoke deep emotions.

Today, close to 30 years after his death, Redefining Oblivion salutes this herculean idol and celebrates his lasting legacy that has benefited several thousands of people in their arduous fight against cancer, by giving them what they needed above all else in life, that element being hope!

The contents of this post is a letter written by Terry Fox to the Canadian Cancer Society informing them of his endeavour.

Ich bin 'ein' Berliner

I follow the Moskva, Down to Gorky Park, Listening to the wind of change!

-- Wind of Change, Scorpions, 1990

It has been 20 years to the day that the Berlin wall has ceased to exist. There perhaps isn't an instance in history where so much cheer has marked the bringing down of a wall, particularly due to the bitterness that it brought up in dividing people of the same region, race, nationality and flock!

Coincidentally, I'm reading 'The Berlin Wall,' by Frederick Taylor, which is a word by word account of how the wall went up and came down, and to those of you interested in history, I recommend it highly!

Today, as the Germans celebrate the "Festival of Freedom" on the anniversary of the fall of the wall, it is important that we as world citizens take cognizance of the numerous walls that have sprouted up dividing us more than ever before in baseless discrimination and senseless ideology, and direct our concerted efforts to tear them down!

But the question remains, do we have the will to tear down these walls?

Finally, in case you didn't know........ here's a tidbit. Remember the famous track Wind of Change by Scorpions? It was sung in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the many political events that Europe came to witness during the time!

And, as far as Ich bin 'ein' Berliner goes, I'm not too sure if JFK wanted to showcase himself as a jelly doughnut than the Berliner that he wanted very much to be, at that time!

Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth, like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth's sonnet, "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" was written, a little over two hundred years ago, on this day!

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy - Wikipedia

Image Description - A view of the River Thames drawn by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson for Ackermann's Microcosm of London (1808-11). Somerset House, St. Paul's Cathedral and London Bridge are shown.

Remembering Hiroshima

64 years have come to pass since the devastating bombing of Hiroshima by the United States. It was today in 1945 that the "Little Boy" was dropped over the Japanese city that resulted in the instantaneous loss of 70,000 lives and the many thousands that followed as a result of radiation positioning!

Untold horrors, as a result of the nuclear attack continued for several decades and this day serves as a grim reminder to one of history's darkest moments ever.

This post pays homage to the Japanese people who suffered colossal loss of lives and unspeakable humanitarian damage that ensued as a result of the bombings of Hiroshima and subsequently Nagasaki.

I pray in sincere earnestness that such a moment shall never come to be witnessed, ever, in future and that all nations, particularly nuclear powers, understand the ill effects of nuclear engagement which has only one sure end result, that being Mutually Assured Destruction!

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy - Flickr (Under Original Copyright)

Image Description - Floating candles in Töölönlahti Bay, on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, 2007

The Wikipedia Page

The Eagle has landed

Little by little, they grew closer, steady, as if on rails, and I thought 'What a beautiful sight,'one that had to be recorded. As I reached for my Hasselblad, suddenly the Earth popped up over the horizon, directly behind Eagle. I could not have staged it any better, but the alignment was not of my doing, just a happy coincidence. I suspect a lot of good photography is like that, some serendipitous happenstance beyond the control of the photographer. But at any rate, as I clicked away, I realized that for the first time, in one frame, appeared three billion earthlings, two explorers, and one moon. The photographer, of course, was discreetly out of view.

-- Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot - Apollo 11

Launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. ET aboard a Saturn V rocket, Apollo 11 included a command module dubbed Columbia and a lunar lander called the Eagle.

The lander was named after the bald eagle in the mission insignia.

Apollo 11's journey to the moon took three and a half days.

During that time the astronauts "just kind of gazed out the window at the Earth getting smaller and smaller, did housekeeping things, checking the spacecraft," Aldrin recalled.

As the craft passed through the shadow of the moon and started its approach, Aldrin and Armstrong got into the spider-like lunar module and began their descent.

The landing process didn't go flawlessly. Alarms sounded when the computer couldn't keep up with the data stream: "Nothing serious—it was distracting," Aldrin said.

"Neil didn't like what we were heading toward, and we selected a safer spot alongside a crater with boulders in it. We landed with a little less fuel than we would have liked to have had, maybe 20 seconds of fuel left."

Aldrin insists that he felt no real fear about landing on the moon.

Nevertheless, he said, "we kind of practiced liftoff [for] the first two hours. … We both felt that was the most prudent thing to do after touching down, was to prepare to depart if we had to."

Finally, with half a billion people watching on televisions across the world, the astronauts emerged from the Eagle to spend another two hours exploring the lunar surface.

The pair planted an American flag and placed mementos for fallen peers.

Armstrong uttered his famous first words, reportedly unscripted: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Armstrong and Aldrin logged 21 hours on the moon—spending the last and longest portion of it trying to sleep in the frigid lander.

40 years on, this post pays tribute to the moon landing mission that translated a human dream into reality!

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy: Boston Globe, The Big Picture - Remembering Apollo 11

The above post is not my creation. It has been reproduced verbatim from the archives of the National Geographic Channel and is accessible here - MOON LANDING FACTS: Apollo 11 at 40

NASA's feature on the Moon Landing Mission

The prelude to Apollo 11

Remembering the holocaust

67 years ago, on this day in 1942, Hitler's notorious SS murdered 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv! The holocaust is perhaps the darkest acts of modern history, one that still serves as a grim reminder of how cruel and despicable human beings could be to their own kind.

Camps Auschwitz and Birkenau, among the many of their kind, witnessed some of the most grotesque events mankind could ever experience. By the time, Nazi Germany was brought to its knees, several million people had fallen victim to concentration camps established by Hitler's armies to systematically exterminate those unfit to be part of the superior race!

May such an act of Satan, never ever come to be!

Ironically, it is on this day, in 1945 that Germany's final surrender was signed.

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy - Wikipedia

The entrance to Auschwitz I was, and still is marked with the sign "Arbeit Macht Frei", meaning "work makes one free."

Truth alone triumphs

Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word "satyagraha."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

"With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." - April 6, 1930

"I cannot withhold my compliments from the government for the policy of complete non interference adopted by them throughout the march .... I wish I could believe this non-interference was due to any real change of heart or policy. The wanton disregard shown by them to popular feeling in the Legislative Assembly and their high-handed action leave no room for doubt that the policy of heartless exploitation of India is to be persisted in at any cost, and so the only interpretation I can put upon this non-interference is that the British Government, powerful though it is, is sensitive to world opinion which will not tolerate repression of extreme political agitation which civil disobedience undoubtedly is, so long as disobedience remains civil and therefore necessarily non-violent .... It remains to be seen whether the Government will tolerate as they have tolerated the march, the actual breach of the salt laws by countless people from tomorrow." - As told to the reporter of the Associated Press, on April 5, 1930

Today marks the 79th year of the conclusion of the Dandi Yatra (march), which was led by Mahatma Gandhi, to oppose the British Salt Tax. It began on 12th March 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi accompanied by 78 satyagrahis, embarked on a journey, by foot, to the coastal village of Dandi in Gurjarat, some 390 kilometers (240 miles) from their starting point at the Sabarmati Ashram. My intention to make this post was to showcase the power of peace and its achievements, while also commemorating a very significant moment in Indian history! I'd like to conclude this post by quoting Martin Luther King Jr, who said the following about Mahatma Gandhi and the Salt Satyagraha.

"Like most people, I had heard of Gandhi, but I had never studied him seriously. As I read I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance. I was particularly moved by his Salt March to the Sea and his numerous fasts. The whole concept of Satyagraha (Satya is truth which equals love, and agraha is force; Satyagraha, therefore, means truth force or love force) was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform."

Footnotes

Inputs from Wikipedia

Images Courtesy - Wikipedia, as per original copyrights held by the Government of India & Peace Power - A journal of non-violence and conflict transformation

Suggested Reading - The Salt Satyagraha

Mir's last sigh

8 years ago, on 23rd March 2001 at 05:50:00 UTC, an object weighing 124,340 kgs entered the Earth's atmosphere and moments later ceased to exist.

5,519 days and 3,638,470,307 kms later the Mir space station had become etched in history as one of the most widely known and the 'world's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space.'

On the occasion of its death anniversary, I thought it worth to mention a few interesting facts

1. The station was in orbit for more than 14 years
2. It orbited 225 miles (362 kilometers) above Earth - about the distance from New York City to Boston
3. It circled the planet about 16 times a day.
4. It moved at about 17,500 m.p.h. (28,163 kilometers per hour).
5. It consisted six modules carrying 11.3 tons (11,481 kilograms) of equipment
6. Overall, the complex weighed about 130 tons (132,080 kilograms).
7. It included 6 modules arranged in a T-shape.
8. Mir was home to more than 100 cosmonauts, astronauts and other visitors.
9. Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov set the record for the longest stay in space and on Mir -- 438 days in 1994-95.
10. Equipment on Mir was manufactured in 27 countries.
11. More than 16,500 experiments were conducted on the station.
12. Some 24 international programs have been realized on Mir during its life in orbit.
13. The station's development resulted in more than 600 new technologies, which later turned out to be useful to industry; and
14. Mir in Russian means either Peace or World! (I prefer peace!)

Footnotes

List of Mir Expeditions
List of Mir spacewalks
List of spacecraft and crews that visited Mir

Image Courtesy: NASA

F-WTSS 001 - Autorisé à décoller

It is 2nd March, but 1969, forty years before today! The place, known to avionics veterans either as TLS or LFBO and located 6.7 km northwest of Toulouse just south of Blagnac is the Aéroport de Toulouse - Blagnac, better known to the outside world as the Toulouse Blagnac International Airport, in France, witnessed history in the making when an Anglo-French plane bearing registration number F-WTSS, designated 001, took off and hovered in the air for 27 minutes before its commander decided to bring it back to land!

Powered by four Olympus 593 engines, built jointly by the Bristol division of Rolls Royce and the French Snecma organisation, the Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde had for the first time "lifted off" ground amidst thundering applause from a battery of personnel, cameramen and journalists who had gathered to watch the maiden flight!

Eventually, only 20 of these super-birds were ever built and the supersonic carrier was withdrawn from service due to a host of problems ranging from finance to environmental impact! F-WTSS, 001 itself flew only 812 hours before being retired on 19 October 1973! It is currently on display at Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (The Museum of Air and Space), Le Bourget, France.

The last concorde, G-BOAF 216, was retired on 26 November 2003 after 18257 hours in flight, thus bringing the concorde era to an end!

Footnotes:

Image Courtesy: The BBC
Other inputs: Wikipedia

The Agent of Change

Change has come

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers.

(Excerpts from the Inaugural address)

Footnotes:

Inputs from The White House, Washington

Image Courtesy: Office of the President-Elect