Internet (ARPA NET in early times)

The Internet, Then known as ARPANET, was brought online in 1969 under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US. The contract was carried out by BBN of Cambridge,MA under Bob Kahn and went online in December 1969.

Four ground rules were critical to Kahn's early thinking:

·         Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no internal   changes could be required to any such network to connect it to the Internet.

·         Communications would be on a best effort basis. If a packet didn't make it to the final destination, it would shortly be retransmitted from the source.

·         Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these would later be called gateways and routers. There would be no information retained by the gateways about the individual flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from various failure modes.

·         There would be no global control at the operations level.

Other key issues that needed to be addressed were:

·         Algorithms to prevent lost packets from permanently disabling communications and enabling them to be successfully retransmitted from the source.

·         Providing for host-to-host "pipelining" so that multiple packets could be enroute from source to destination at the discretion of the participating hosts, if the intermediate networks allowed it.

·         Gateway functions to allow it to forward packets appropriately. This included interpreting IP headers for routing, handling interfaces, breaking packets into smaller pieces if necessary, etc.

·         The need for end-end checksums, reassembly of packets from fragments and detection of duplicates, if any.

·         The need for global addressing

·         Techniques for host-to-host flow control.

·         Interfacing with the various operating systems

·         There were also other concerns, such as implementation efficiency, internetwork performance, but these were secondary considerations at first.

The history of the Internet began with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. The public was first introduced to the concepts that would lead to the Internet when a message was sent over the ARPANet from computer science Professor Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), after the second piece of network equipment was installed at Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Packet switched networks such as ARPANET, Mark I at NPL in the UK, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined together into a network of networks.

In 1982, the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) was standardized, and consequently, the concept of a world-wide network of interconnected TCP/IP networks, called the Internet, was introduced. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) developed the Computer Science Network (CSNET) and again in 1986 when NSFNET provided access to supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations. Commercial Internet (ISPs) began to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when NSFNET was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.

Promoted to the head of the information processing office at DARPA, Robert Taylor intended to realize Licklider's ideas of an interconnected networking system. Bringing in Larry Roberts from MIT, he initiated a project to build such a network. The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute at 22:30 hours on October 29, 1969.

"We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI ...", Kleinrock ... said in an interview: "We typed the L and we asked on the phone,

"Do you see the L?"

"Yes, we see the L," came the response.

We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O."

"Yes, we see the O."

Then we typed the G, and the system crashed ...

Yet a revolution had begun" ....

Mercury

Mercury, also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum, is a chemical element.No one has the credit for finding mercury. It was found in ancient history. Mercury was found in Egyptian tombs that are from 1500 BC.Chinese people also knew it from long ago. In China and Tibet, people thought using mercury would make them live longer and have better health. One of China's emperors, Qín Shǐ Huáng Dì, is said to have been buried in a tomb with rivers of flowing mercury. He was killed by drinking a mixture of mercury and powdered jade because he wanted to live forever. However, this only made him die of liver failure, poisoning, and brain death. The ancient Greeks used mercury in ointments. The Egyptians and the Romans used it in cosmetics. These cosmetics sometimes hurt and made faces uglier.

Mercury is not usually found free in nature and is primarily obtained from the mineral cinnabar (HgS). Spain and Italy produce about half of the world's supply of Mercury.

Mercury can be used to make thermometers, barometers and other scientific instruments. Mercury conducts electricity and is used to make silent, position dependent switches. Mercury vapor is used in streetlights, fluorescent lamps and advertising signs.

Mercury easily forms alloys with other metals, such as gold, silver, zinc and cadmium. These alloys are called amalgams. Amalgams are used to help extract gold from its ores, create dental fillings (in the case of silver) and help extend the life of dry cell batteries (in the case of zinc and cadmium).

Footwear

Spanish cave drawings from more than 15,000 years ago show humans with animal skins or furs wrapped around their feet. The body of a well-preserved “ice-man” nearly 5,000 years old wears leather foot coverings stuffed with straw. Shoes, in some form or another, have been around for a very long time. The evolution of foot coverings, from the sandal to present-day athletic shoes that are marvels of engineering, continues even today as we find new materials with which to cover our feet.

Has the shoe really changed that much though? We are, in fact, still wearing sandals – the oldest crafted foot covering known to us. Moccasins are still readily available in the form of the loafer. In fact, many of the shoes we wear today can be traced back to another era. The Cuban heel may have been named for the dance craze of the 1920s, but the shape can be seen long before that time. Platform soles, which are one of the most recognizable features of footwear in the 1970s and 1990s were handed down to us from 16th centurychopines. Then, high soles were a necessity to keep the feet off of the dirty streets. Today, they are worn strictly for fashion’s sake. The poulaine, with its ridiculously long toes is not that different from the winkle-pickers worn in the 1960s.

If one can deduce that basic shoe shapes have evolved only so much, it is necessary to discover why this has happened. It is surely not due to a lack of imagination – the colors and materials of shoes today demonstrate that. Looking at shoes from different parts of the world, one can see undeniable similarities. While the Venetians were wearing the chopine, the Japanese balanced on high-soled wooden shoes called geta. Though the shape is slightly different, the idea remains the same. The Venetians had no contact with the Japanese, so it is not a case of imitation. Even the mystical Chinese practice of foot binding has been copied (though to a lesser extent) in our culture. Some European women and men of the past bound their feet with tape and squashed them into too-tight shoes. In fact, a survey from the early 1990s reported that 88 percent of American women wear shoes that are too small!

As one examines footwear history, both in the West and in other parts of the world, the similarities are apparent. Though the shoemakers of the past never would have thought to pair a sandal with a platform sole, our shoe fashions of today are, for the most part, modernized adaptations of past styles.

Football (American Football and Soccer)

Football (as well as rugby and soccer) are believed to have descended from the ancient Greek game of harpaston.   Harpaston is mentioned frequently in classical literature, where it is often referred to as a “very rough and brutal game“.  The rules of this ancient sport were quite simple:  Points were awarded when a player would cross a goal line by either kicking the ball, running with it across the goal line, or throwing it across the line to another player. The other team’s objective was simply to stop them by any means possible.  There was no specific field length, no side line boundaries, no specified number of players per team, only a glaring lack of rules.

Most modern versions of football are believed to have originated from England in the twelfth century. The game became so popular in England that the kings of that time (Henry II and Henry IV) actually banned football. They believed that football was taking away interest from the traditional sports of England, such as fencing and archery.

England was where the game was developed and codified. The modern global game of Football was first codified in 1863 in London. The impetus for this was to unify English public school and university football games. There is evidence for refereed, team football games being played in English schools since at least 1581. An account of an exclusively kicking football game from Nottinghamshire-Notts County in the 15th century bears similarity to football. England can boast the earliest ever documented use of the English word "football" (1409) and the earliest reference to the sport in French (1314). England is home to the oldest football clubs in the world (dating from at least 1857), the world's oldest competition (the FA cup founded in 1871) and the first ever football league (1888). But the first ever inter league was in the 20th century. For these reasons England is considered the home of the game of football.

Tom And Jerry

Tom and Jerry is a series of theatrical animated cartoon films created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, centering on a rivalry between a cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases include slapstick comedy. Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote, produced and directed 114 Tom and Jerry shorts at MGM cartoon studios in Hollywood from 1940 to 1957. The original series is notable for having won seven Academy Awards, tying with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the theatrical animated series with the most Oscars. A longtime television staple, Tom and Jerry has a worldwide audience and has been recognized as one of the most famous and longest-lived rivalries in American cinema.

MGM released an additional 13 entries in 1961 produced by Rembrandt Films led by Gene Deitch in central Europe. Chuck Jones's Sib-Tower 12 Productions produced another 34 entries between 1963–1967, creating a total of 161 theatrical entries.

Tom and Jerry resurfaced in made-for-television series' produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Filmation Studios starting in the 1970s. The feature-length film, Tom and Jerry: The Movie was released in 1992, and was followed by their first made-for-television short, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat for Boomerang. The most recent Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The Karate Guard (2005), was written and co-directed by Barbera.

Time Warner (via its Turner Entertainment division) currently owns the rights to Tom and Jerry: Warner Bros. handles distribution. Since the merger, Turner has produced Tom and Jerry Tales for The CW's Saturday morning "The CW4Kids" lineup, and several Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films in collaboration with Warner Bros. Animation.

Paper (also known as Papyrus)

The Invention Of Paper

Paper was invented by the ancient Chinese in the 2nd century BC during the Han Dynasty and spread slowly to the west via the Silk Road. Papermaking and manufacturing in Europe started in the Iberian Peninsula, today's Portugal and Spain and Sicily in the 10th century by the Muslims living there at the time, and slowly spread to Italy and South France reaching Germany by 1400. Earlier, other paper-like materials were in use like papyrus, parchment and vellum.

In medieval Europe, the hitherto handcraft of papermaking was mechanized by the use of waterpower, the first water paper mill in the Iberian Peninsula having been built in the Portuguese city of Leiria in 1411, and other processes. The rapid expansion of European paper production was truly enhanced by the invention of the printing press and the beginning of the Printing Revolution in the 15th century.

The word "paper" is etymologically derived from papyrus, Ancient Greek for the Cyperus papyrus plant. Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material produced from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant which was used in ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures for writing long before the making of paper in China. 

Papyrus however is a "lamination of natural plants, while paper is manufactured from fibers whose properties have been changed by maceration or disintegration.

AD 105 is often cited as the year in which papermaking was invented. In that year, historical records show that the invention of paper was reported to the Chinese Emperor by Ts'ai Lun, an official of the Imperial Court.

Recent archaeological investigations, however, place the actual invention of papermaking some 200 years earlier. Ancient paper pieces from the Xuanquanzhi ruins of Dunhuang in China's northwest Gansu province apparently were made during the period of Emperor Wu who reigned between 140 BC and 86 BC.

Whether or not Ts'ai Lun was the actual inventor of paper, he deserves the place of honor he has been given in Chinese history for his role in developing a material that revolutionized his country.

Early Chinese paper appears to have been made by from a suspension of hemp waste in water, washed, soaked, and beaten to a pulp with a wooden mallet. A paper mold, probably a sieve of coarsely woven cloth stretched in a four-sided bamboo frame, was used to dip up the fiber slurry from the vat and hold it for drying. Eventually, tree bark, bamboo, and other plant fibers were used in addition to hemp.

The first real advance in papermaking came with the development of a smooth material for the mold covering, which made it possible for the papermaker to free the newly formed sheet and reuse the mold immediately. This covering was made from thin strips of rounded bamboo stitched or laced together with silk, flax, or animal hairs. Other Chinese improvements in papermaking include the use of starch as a sizing material and the use of a yellow dye which doubled as an insect repellent for manuscript paper.

The Invention Of Erasers

History Behind Erasers

Before rubber erasers, tablets of rubber or wax were used to erase lead or charcoal marks from paper. Bits of rough stone such as sandstone or pumice were used to remove small errors from parchment or papyrus documents written in ink. Crust less bread was used as an eraser in the past; a Meiji-era (1868-1912) Imagine a bread used for rubbing pencil marks today.

A Tokyo student said: "Bread erasers were used in place of rubber erasers, and so they would give them to us with no restriction on amount. So we thought nothing of taking these and eating a firm part to at least slightly satisfy our hunger."

On April 15, 1770, Joseph Priestley described a vegetable gum to remove pencil marks: "I have seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the mark of black lead pencil." He dubbed the substance "rubber".

In 1770, Edward Nairne, an English engineer, is credited with developing the first widely-marketed rubber eraser for an inventions competition. He sold natural rubber erasers for the high price of three shillings per half-inch cube. According to Nairne, he inadvertently picked up a piece of rubber instead of breadcrumbs, discovered rubber's erasing properties, and began selling rubber erasers. Incidentally, that was the first practical application of the substance in Europe, and rubbing out the pencil marks gave it its English name.

However, raw rubber shared the same inconveniences as bread, since it was perishable. It was noticed that while the rubber softened in warm weather, it became hard in cold conditions. What 's more, the first rubbers had an unpleasant smell if you kept using it. A scientist named Charles Goodyear invented the process of 'vulcanization' in 1839. This innovative process enabled rubber to become more long lasting, elastic and more durable in nature. Rubber erasers became common with this advent of vulcanization.

On March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia, USA, received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil. It was later invalidated because it was determined to be simply a composite of two devices rather than an entirely new product.

How an eraser makes everything disappear

Ever wondered how all these materials erase graphite, charcoal and lead marks on paper? The logic behind it is quite simple. The molecules in erasers are relatively stickier than those constituting paper. Therefore, when an eraser is rubbed onto a pencil mark, the graphite sticks to the eraser's surface instead of the paper's surface. While it does this, the eraser can damage the top layer of the paper itself if used too roughly. It leaves some residue on the paper, which then needs to be removed. Erasers are primarily adsorbents.

History Behind Ashes Series (Australia vs England- Cricket)

The Ashes Test Series

           

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia  since 1882. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international sport and is played biennially, Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues being in opposite hemispheres, the break between series alternates between 18 and 30 months.

An Ashes series comprises five Test matches, two innings per match, under the regular rules for Test cricket. If a series is drawn then the country already holding the Ashes retains them.

Australia's first victory on English soil over the full strength of England, on August 29, 1882, inspired a young London journalist, Reginald Shirley Brooks, to write this mock "obituary''. It appeared in the Sporting Times.

"In affectionate remembrance of English cricket which died at The Oval, 29th August, 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances, RIP. NB The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia."

Before England's defeat at The Oval, by seven runs, arrangements had already been made for the Hon. Ivo Bligh, afterwards Lord Darnley, to lead a team to Australia. Three weeks later they set out, now with the popular objective of recovering the Ashes. In the event, Australia won the first Test by nine wickets, but with England winning the next two it became generally accepted that they brought back the Ashes.

It was long believed that the real Ashes - a small urn thought to contain the ashes of a bail used in the third match - were presented to Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. In 1998, Lord Darnley's 82-year-old daughter-in-law said they were the remains of her mother-in-law's veil, not a bail. Other evidence suggests a ball. The certain origin of the Ashes, therefore, is the subject of some dispute.

After Lord Darnley's death in 1927, the urn was given to MCC by Lord Darnley's Australian-born widow, Florence. It can be seen in the cricket museum at Lord's, together with a red and gold velvet bag, made especially for it, and the scorecard of the 1882 match.

The text on the urn is as follows:-

When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
Studds, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return;
The welkin will ring loud,
The great crowd will feel proud,
Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn;
And the rest coming home with the urn.

The first Test match between England and Australia was played in 1877, though the Ashes legend started later, after the ninth Test, played in 1882.

On their tour that year (1882) the Australians played just one Test, at the Oval in London. It was a low-scoring affair on a difficult wicket. Australia made a mere 63 runs in its first innings, and England, led by A. N. Hornby, took a 38-run lead with a total of 101. In their second innings, the Australians, boosted by a spectacular 55 runs off 60 deliveries from Hugh Massie, managed 122, which left England only 85 runs to win.

The Australians were greatly demoralized by the manner of their second-innings collapse, but fast bowler Fred Spofforth, spurred on by some gamesmanship by his opponents, refused to give in. "This thing can be done," he declared. Spofforth went on to devastate the English batting, taking his final four wickets for only two runs to leave England just eight runs short of victory in one of the closest finishes in the history of cricket.

When Ted Peate, England's last batsman, came to the crease, his side needed just ten runs to win, but Peate managed only two before he was bowled by Harry Boyle. An astonished Oval crowd fell silent, struggling to believe that England could possibly have lost to a colony. When it finally sank in, the crowd swarmed onto the field, cheering loudly and chairing Boyle and Spofforth to the pavilion.

When Peate returned to the pavilion he was reprimanded by his captain for not allowing his partner, Charles Studd (one of the best batsman in England, having already hit two centuries that season against the colonists) to get the runs. Peate humorously replied, "I had no confidence in Mr. Studd, sir, so thought I had better do my best."

The momentous defeat was widely recorded in the British press, which praised the Australians for their plentiful "pluck" and berated the Englishmen for their lack thereof. A celebrated poem appeared in Punch on Saturday, 9 September. The first verse, quoted most frequently, reads:

Well done, Cornstalks! Whipt us

Fair and square,

Was it luck that tript us?

Was it scare?

Kangaroo Land's 'Demon', or our own

Want of 'devil', coolness, nerve, backbone?

On 31 August, in the great Charles Alcock-edited magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game, there appeared a mock obituary:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

ENGLAND'S SUPREMACY IN THE

CRICKET-FIELD

WHICH EXPIRED

ON THE 29TH DAY OF AUGUST, AT THE OVAL

"ITS END WAS PEATE"

On 2 September a more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks under the pseudonym "Bloobs", appeared in The Sporting Times. It read:

In Affectionate Remembrance

of

ENGLISH CRICKET,

which died at the Oval

on

29th AUGUST 1882,

Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing

friends and acquaintances

R.I.P.

N.B.—The body will be cremated and the

ashes taken to Australia.

About the blog...

We all might be knowing a lot of things. Lot of incidences, inventions etc. etc. But though we know a lot about these things, we don't know it all. Hence this is an effort from my side to give you an exposure of what all things happen around the world of which we are not at all aware of.

Moreover, we have a little knowledge about many incidents, but here you will get along stories and realities that have a deep inside knowledge about a lot of things that you didn't imagine.

There are certain incidents that proved to a milestone in the history of its particular field but were started on a silly view or incident.

The other thing that may come to your mind is that why is this blog necessary??? In fact it is simply necessary because we should know the things happening around us. We should know why things were invented and why we started believing some facts. The knowledge that most of us have is inadequate.

That is the reason why I can up with the idea of asking questions and getting them answered. The content of the blog will be of our day to day life and things that were considered as milestones in the history of man kind in some or the other way.

Stay in touch, and I am sure that you will know things that others don't even have a clue of. So, enjoy and get smart...!!!