My Science School

Michael Phelps is without doubt the best swimmer of all time and one of the greatest Olympians ever. He finished his Olympics career, which he started as a 15-year-old at the 2000 Sydney Games.

Phelps has 28 medals in total: his 23 gold medals are more than double the count of his nearest rivals, and its not as if other swimmers have accrued silly numbers of medals, either. Apart from Spitz, Matt Biondi (USA, eight golds) and Jenny Thompson (USA, eight golds), no other swimmer worldwide has managed more than six gold medals in total. 23 is astonishing.

 Having not picked up a single medal on his debut, he ran riot in the next four editions that he participated to finish with an all-time record haul at the Olympics, in addition to the innumerable medals that he has picked up in swimming championships worldwide.

Phelps towers over the rest of the individuals in the Olympics medal tally and he is often peerless when looking to compare with other athletes. So instead, if we were to consider Phelps as a country, where would he be on the all-time medals tally? With 23 golds - 13 of which were individual golds - three silver and two bronze, Phelps the one-man country will have less than one-fourth of the over 200 countries that participate at the Olympics above him. And this is through the history of the games - meaning Phelps currently has a medal haul that is better than over 150 countries, including India. Yet this ranking sells him short in some ways, because four of the countries ahead of him are Germany, which over time has competed as Germany, West Germany, East Germany and the Unified German Team. Russia, the Soviet Union and and the 1992 Unified Team (made up of the 15 former Soviet republics) account for three more countries ahead of Phelps. If measured against the 205 countries now in Rio, the Republic of Phelps has more gold medals than all but 32 of them.

Credit : Archive.KPCC

Picture Credit : Google 

You might have never heard the name Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain. But it is through Chamberlain that the origins of snooker, a cue sport has an Indian connection.

Stationed in Jabalpur in 1875 as part of the British Indian Army, 19-year-old Chamberlain invented the game of snooker by experimenting with an existing game-a form of billiards - and adding more colour to it. In 1885, John Roberts, the then British Billiards Champion, visited India and met with Chamberlain during a dinner with the Maharajah of Cooch Behar. After enquiring about the rules of snooker, Roberts decided he would introduce the game back in England. Although it took many years before the game became widely played, by the end of the 19th century the manufacturers of billiards equipment had realised the commercial potential of snooker.

Snooker started growing in popularity from the 1880s and rose to prominence in the next half a century or so. While Chamberlain was busy working his way to become Sir Chamberlain, speculation regarding the game's origins increased.

On March 19, 1938, The Field carried a letter from 82-year-old Chamberlain staking his claim to inventing snooker. It helped Chamberlain that he had the backing of author Compton Mackenzie, who supported Chamberlain's claim in a letter to The Billiard Player in 1939. Chamberlain's claim as the inventor of snooker hasn't been disputed since then, forever cementing a link between the sport and our country.

Credit : Sky history

Picture Credit : Google 

American Elizabeth Magie invented the Landlord's Game (precursor of the modern Monopoly) in 1904, as a sign of protest against the barons and monopolists of the Gilded Age (a period in the U.S. marked by materialism and corruption). The purpose of the game was: to educate people about how the rich were unfairly profiting off the labour of the commoners.

A progressive woman

She was heavily influenced by the writings of Henry George, a political economist and land reformer. His progressive views on taxes and wealth inequality were imperative in laying the foundation of the Landlord's Game.

Magie curated two different versions of the game - an anti-monopolist version where wealth created was equally distributed among all the players, and a monopolist version where everyone tried to get as rich as possible while bankrupting others. This duality was her attempt at demonstrating how the first variation is morally superior.

Magie's game patented

 Patented in 1904, the game was a hit among the masses, especially among the Quakers (a group of people who embraced equality and peace, and rejected war) of the Atlantic. But to her dismay, the game designed to educate people about the evils of monopoly ended up doing quite the opposite.

As its popularity gained momentum, people started customising and modifying the rules of the game while drawing the design by hand on fabric or table cloth. One of those people was Charles Darrow. His version had a circular board, and more cut-throat rules. He also added small illustrations of actual streets of the Atlantic city (with their names) and colour-coordinated them - to create the board we know today.

Her game is sidelined

In 1935, Parker Brothers bought the rights to Darrow's version of the Monopoly and added a portly mascot with a top hat and a cane (rumoured to be modelled around American banker JP Morgan). They also distributed metal tokens with each set inspired by trinkets Darrow had used from his niece's charm bracelet. While this deal made Darrow a millionaire, Magie's patent was bought by the brothers for mere $500.

The truth emerges

In 1948, with the death of Elizabeth Magie, the very truth of the origin of Monopoly had nearly died with her, as officially the company still credited Darrow as the inventor of the game. Things changed in 1973, when the Parker Brothers engaged in a legal battle with a professor named Ralph Anspach over the creation of his anti-monopoly game, and accidentally uncovered Magie's patents.

Even now, with more than a century under its belt, Monopoly is considered the best-selling board game in modern history, and has been translated into 47 languages.

Picture Credit : Google 

India won the second Test at Lord's against England in 2014 to take a 1-0 win in the five-match series. Following the drawn Test at Nottingham, the two sides met at London in Lord's.

England won the toss and elected to field first. Even though wickets were falling around him, Ajinkya Rahane scored 103 to spearhead India's first innings total of 295.

Gary Ballance top-scored for England in their first innings.

His 110 and Liam Plunkett's unbeaten 55 helped England take the lead, as they posted 319.

Murali Vijay's 95 along with quick-fire fifties from Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar from the lower order helped India to 342 in their second essay. Chasing 319 to win the Test match, England were undone by Ishant Sharma. He picked up seven wickets as England were bowled out for 223, allowing India to win the match by 95 runs. Ishant Sharma was named the player of the match for his match-winning heroics in the final innings

DID YOU KNOW?

Despite winning this Test and taking a lead in the series. India went on to lose the remaining three matches in the five-match series, losing the series 3-1.

This victory was only India's second Test victory against England at the historic venue.

India's first victory at Lord's came way back in 1986. India had won by five wickets on that occasion.

While India lost at Lord's when they next played a Test at the venue in 2018, they won again in 2021 - by 151 runs.

Pictur Credit : Google