Marina Beach

Marina Beach is an urban beach in the city of Chennai, India, along the Bay of Bengal, part of the Indian Ocean. The beach runs from near Fort St. George in the north to Besant Nagar in the south, a distance of 13 km, making it the longest urban beach in the country and the world’s second longest.

 

The Marina is primarily sandy, unlike the short, rocky formations that make up the Juhu Beach in Mumbai. The width of the beach at the widest stretch is 437 m. Bathing and swimming at the Marina Beach can be dangerous as the undercurrent is very turbulent and are legally prohibited.

It is the most crowded beach in the country and attracts about 30,000 visitors a day during weekdays and 50,000 visitors a day during the weekends and on holidays. During summer months, about 15,000 to 20,000 people visit the beach daily.

 

History

Before the Madras harbour was built, the Marina beach was just a strip of mud, teeming with mudskippers. The beach washed up close to the present day road for a long time until the harbor was built in 1881.

 

Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, the governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886, who was captivated by the beach on an earlier visit to the city in the late 1870s, conceived and built the promenade along the beach in 1884 by extensively modifying and layering with soft sand.

Ever since the harbour was built, the area south of the port has accreted significantly, forming the present day’s beach mainly due to the presence of wave breakers laid for the construction of the harbour, although the coast in the northern region has undergone severe erosion.

Eventually, the north-drifting current widened the beach to its present extent. The beach was formed as a result of arresting the littoral drift by the port’s breakwater. The area of the beach is increasing 40 sq m every year due to progradation.

 

Attractions

Marina beach is a major tourist attraction of the city. People visiting Chennai make a point to visit the beach. It is also the main place for the local people to escape from the summer heat.

The beach is popular for its shops and food stalls run by about 500-odd vendors. The memorials and statues, morning walk, joggers’ track, lovers’ spot, aquarium, and the like make it a hangout for people of all ages. Kite flying and beach cricket are common sports at the beach, and there are also facilities for pony rides.

First Battle of Panipat

Date: 21 April 1526
Location: Panipat, Haryana, India
Result: Mughal victory
Territorial changes: Delhi Sultanate annexed by Mughals

Belligerents:
Mughal Empire
Lodi Empire

The first battle of Panipat took place in Northern India, and marked the beginning of the Mughal Empire. This was one of the earliest battles involving gunpowder firearms and field artillery.

In 1526, the Mughal forces of Babur, the Timurid ruler of Kabulistan, defeated the much larger Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi, Sultan of Delhi.

The battle was fought on 21 April near the small village of Panipat, in the present day Indian state of Haryana, an area that has been the site of a number of decisive battles for the control of Northern India since the twelfth century.

It is estimated that Babur’s forces numbered around 15,000 men and had between 20 to 24 pieces of field artillery. Babur estimated Lodi had around 100,000 men, though that number included camp followers, while the fighting force was around 30,000 to 40,000 men in total, along with at least 100 war elephants. Lodi’s army was mostly Hindus although he and his dynasty was Muslim of Pashtun ethnic background.

The advantage of guns at the time of war It is generally told that Babur’s guns proved decisive in battle, firstly because Ibrahim Lodi lacked any field artillery, but also because the sound of the cannon frightened Lodi’s elephants, causing them to trample Lodi’s own men.

Ibrahim Lodi died on the field of battle, abandoned by his feudatories and generals (many of whom were mercenaries). Most of them changed their allegiance to the new master of Delhi. However had Sultan Ibrahim survived another hour of fighting he would have won, as Babur had no reserves and his troops were rapidly tiring.

Strange Facts

The speed of light is generally rounded down to 186,000 miles per second. In exact terms it is 299,792,458 m/s (equal to 186,287.49 miles per second).

It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the Sun’s surface to the Earth.

The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.

Every year, over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.

Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.

The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.

The dinosaurs became extinct before the Rockies or the Alps were formed.

Female black widow spiders eat their males after mating.

If our Sun were just inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.

DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss Friedrich Mieschler.

The molecular structure of DNA was first determined by Watson and Crick in 1953.

The first synthetic human chromosome was constructed by US scientists in 1997.

The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.

Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.

Jama Masjid

The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is the principal mosque of Old Delhi in India. Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal,in the year 1644 CE and completed in the year 1658 AD, it is the largest and best-known mosque in India. It lies at the origin of a very busy central street of Old Delhi, the Chawri Bazar Road.

Construction

The foundation of the historic Jama Masjid was laid on a hillock in Shahjahanabad by fifth Mughal Emperor of India, Shahjahan, on Friday, October 19,1650 AD, (10th Shawwal 1060 AH).

The mosque was the result of the efforts of over 5,000 workers, over a period of seven years. The cost incurred on the construction in those times was 10 lakh Rupees, which was finally ready in 1656 AD (1066 AH), complete with three great gates, four towers and two 40 m-high minarets constructed of strips of red sandstone and white marble.

About 25,000 people can pray here at a time. The mosque has a vast paved rectangular courtyard, which is nearly 75 m by 66 m. The whole of the western chamber is a big hall standing on 260 pillars all carved from Hindu and Jain traditions.

The central courtyard is accessible from the East. The Eastern side entrance leads to another enclosure containing the mausoleum of Sultan Ahmed Shah.

Terrorism Incidents

2006 Explosions

On April 14, 2006, two explosions occurred within the Jama Masjid. The first explosion came at around 17:26 and the second some seven minutes later at around 17:33 (IST) . At least thirteen people were injured in the blasts.

There were about 1000 people in the mosque at the time of the blasts as the day happened to be Friday, a Muslim holy day. According to official spokesmen, there was no damage to the mosque itself.

2010 Shooting

On September 15, 2010, two Taiwanese tourists were injured after gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a bus parked near gate number three of the mosque.

Penguins

Penguins are birds.

The name is derived from Welsh terms ‘pen’, meaning head and ‘gwyn’, meaning white.
Linux mascot tux is also a penguin.
Penguin chicks have fluffy feathers.
They are ancient species that appeared 40 million years ago in the Eocene.
Penguins don’t fly, they swim.
Penguins lay eggs.
A group of penguins is called colonies or rookery.
They usually move in huge groups.
Penguins use their wings for swimming.
Penguins open their feather to feel the cold.
Penguins hunt for fish, squid or shrimp like krill in the oceans to fill their stomach.
Most penguins can swim about 15 miles per hour.
Penguins have tightly packed feathers that help them to keep warm.
There are at least 18 different species of penguins.
There may be as many as 100 million penguins in the world.
Penguins can be endangered by oil spills, water pollution, and the global warming.

Comets

Comets are in orbit around the Sun as are our planets.

Comets are composed of ices, dust and rocky debris carried from the early formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.

Comets are remnants from the cold, outer regions of the solar system. They are generally thought to come from two areas – the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper Belt. Both of these are areas where materials left over from the formation of our solar system have condensed into icy objects. Both regions extend beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto but are still part of our solar system and much closer to us than the closest star.

Comet orbits are elliptical. It brings them close to the sun and takes them far away.

Short period comets orbit the Sun every 20 years or less. Long period comets orbit the Sun every 200 years or longer. Those comets with orbits in between are called Halley-type comets.

Comets have three parts: the nucleus, the coma and the tails. The nucleus is the solid center component made of ice, gas and rocky debris. The coma is the gas and dust atmosphere around the nucleus, which results when heat from the Sun warms the surface of the nucleus so that gas and dust spew forth in all directions and are driven from the comet’s surface. The tails are formed when energy from the Sun turns the coma so that it flows around the nucleus and forms a fanned out tail behind it extending millions of miles through space.

We see a comet’s coma and tail because sunlight reflects off the dust (in the coma and dust tail) and because the energy from the Sun excites some molecules so that they glow and form a bluish tail called an ion tail and a yellow one made of neutral sodium atoms.

Scientists have seen comets range in size from less than 1 km diameter to as much as 300 km, although the 300km (called Chiron) does not travel into the inner solar system.

We know a comet could impact Earth and that it is important to understand the nature of comets so we can design better methods to protect ourselves from them should one be on a collision path with Earth.

A comet nucleus has a dark, sometimes mottled surface but we don’t know if it has an outer crust or if it is layered inside. We don’t really know what comets are like beneath their surface and that’s why we need a mission like Deep Impact.

Mayans

The earliest Mayans were probably nomadic hunters and gatherers

By 250 a.d. they had settled into communities

The people traded food, pottery and jewelry

The Mayans people were small the men were about five feet tall and women were around four feet tall

The Mayans used things from the forest to make rope and baskets

The main foods were beans, corn and squash

Mayans huts were made out of logs mud and palm leaves

The Mayans kept dogs as pets raised turkeys for food

The Mayans used a number system based on 20 they were the first to use zero

The Mayans believed in human sacrifice

The Mayans tried to be kind to every one

Around 800 AD, the Mayans abandoned there cites no one knows why this happened

Today many Mayans live in villages in central America

in 1992 Rigoberto menchu tum received the noble peace prize for bringing the Mayan people and the Guatemala government together

Tea

1. The origins of tea:
Legend has it that tea originated well over 5000 years ago in ancient China. The innovative and science-curious emporer Shen Nung insisted that for hygeine purposes, all water in the palace must be boiled. When he was out visiting his kingdom one day, him and his men stopped to boil water to drink and it was said that leaves from a nearby bush fell into the water. Apparently the brew that resulted was so refreshing, the emporer ordered samples of the bush to be brought back to the palace for analysis. Afterwards, word got out and this new phenomenon became fashionable.

2. From the Camellia bush:
Both black and green teas are made from the Camellia sinensis bush and have similar quantities of antioxidants and caffeine.

3. Antioxidant:
Tea contains catechins, a type of antioxidant which has been found to reduce people’s risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Catechins can also be found in cocoa and dark chocolate.

4. Vitamins and minerals:
When combined with milk, tea can offer an array of vitamins and minerals including calcium, vitamin B6, Riboflavin B2, Thiamin B1, manganese for bone growth and repair, and potassium, important for neuron and brain function.

5. Puffy eyes and sunburn:
Teabags can be used to reduce the swelling of puffy eyes. Lie on your back and place a moist teabag over both eyes and leave on for around 20 minutes, this leaves your eyes feeling fresher, brighter, and looking revitalised. Also, a wet teabag can be used to soothe burns and sunburn. By either placing the teabag straight onto the burn or pouring tea into cool bathwater, it has been known to take away the burn’s sting and help the skin heal faster.

6. Tea reduces risk of heart attacks:
Research conducted in the Netherlands suggests that tea can help people avoid heart attacks, especially women. Johanna M Geleijnse, PhD from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam led a study which followed 4807 Dutch adults over the age of 55 who had no heart problems in their previous medical history.

7. Odour absorbant:
It has been found that tea can work as an odour absorbant, removing bad smells especially from your skin. Pouring a cup over your hands is said to work wonders for all kinds of bad odours!

8. Warts and all:
Tea can be used to treat warts as the tannin present in tea is acidic. This element makes tea as effective at removing warts as creams and ointments. Leaving a moist teabag on the wart for 15 minutes, 3 times per day, will cause the wart to shrink and disappear.

9. Caffeine:
The caffeine content of tea is approximately half of the amount that you’d find in a cup of brewed coffee. Whereas coffee provides around 100mg per 190ml cup, tea provides just 50mg, leaving you without the caffeine “drop” so familiar to coffee drinkers.

10. Oral Health:
A report issued by the UK Tea Council in 2006 stated that the fluoride content of tea makes it a potent defender of oral health. Fluoride binds to the tooth enamel, slowing down the tooth decay process and preventing cavities. Also, the instance of tannins in tea inhibits the growth of certain plaque-forming bacteria.

Pen

Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884. Writing instruments designed to carry their own supply of ink had existed in principle for over one hundred years before Waterman’s patent.
For example, the oldest known fountain pen that has survived today was designed by a Frenchmen named M. Bion and dated 1702. Peregrin Williamson, a Baltimore shoemaker, received the first American patent for a pen in 1809.
John Scheffer received a British patent in 1819 for his half quill, half metal pen that he attempted to mass manufacture. John Jacob Parker patented the first self-filling fountain pen in 1831. However, early fountain pen models were plagued by ink spills and other failures that left them impractical and hard to sell.
The fountain pen’s design came after a thousand years of using quill-pens. Early inventors observed the apparent natural ink reserve found in the hollow channel of a bird’s feather and tried to produce a similar effect, with a man-made pen that would hold more ink and not require constant dipping into the ink well.
Filling a long thin reservoir made of hard rubber with ink and sticking a metal ‘nib’ at the bottom was not enough to produce a smooth writing instrument.
Lewis Waterman, an insurance salesman, was inspired to improve the early fountain pen designs after destroying a valuable sales contract with leaky-pen ink. Lewis Waterman’s idea was to add an air hole in the nib and three grooves inside the feed mechanism.
A mechanism is composed of three main parts. The nib, which has the contact with the paper. The feed or black part under the nib controls the ink flow from the reservoir to the nib. The round barrel that holds the nib and feed on the writing end protects the ink reservoir internally.
All pens contain an internal reservoir for ink. The different ways that reservoirs filled proved to be one of the most competitive areas in the pen industry. The earliest 19th century pens used an eyedropper; by 1915, most pens had switched to having a self-filling soft and flexible rubber sac as an ink reservoir.
To refill these pens, the reservoirs were squeezed flat by an internal plate, then the pen’s nib was inserted into a bottle of ink and the pressure on the internal plate was released so that the ink sac would fill up drawing in a fresh supply of ink.

Venus

Venus is known as Earths’ twin sister because of its similar size and proximity to each other.
Its atmosphere is made up mostly of carbon dioxide.
Venus rotates so slowly that it orbits the sun faster than it can make one whole rotation on its axis. In other words, Venus has a longer day than year.
It takes 243 days for Venus to make a rotation.
And it takes 224 days for Venus to orbit around the sun.
Venus is the most widely explored planet aside from our own Earth. Numerous space probes have been sent to Venus to gather data and some have landed on the surface.
It is believed that Venus used to have bodies of water similar to Earth, but dried up over a period of 300 million years when the sun began admitting more solar energy after the sun’s infancy stage.
The clouds of Venus is filled with sulfuric acid.
Venus has mountains that are higher than Earth. Maat Mons is more than 5 miles high.
Venus is the brightest planet viewed from Earth.
The planet rotates from East to West. The only other planet that does this is Uranus.