My Science School

Red Fort has always been of place of attention, interest, and curiosity for anyone born in this nation India. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the construction of the Red Fort on 12 May 1638, when he decided to shift his capital from Agra Delhi Originally red and white, its design is credited to architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori, who also constructed the Taj Mahal. As per the Archaeological Survey of India, parts of the building were made of limestone which is usually white in colour. It was only after the white stone started chipping off that the building was painted fully red by the British. The Red Fort is famous for its massive enclosing walls. The fort's construction was completed over a span of ten years, between 1638 and 1648.

Red Fort was not always known by its current name? It was originally known as “Qila-e-Mubarak”. This name simplifies to “The Blessed Fort”. The interesting fact is this Fort was not initially known as ‘Lal Qila’ but ‘Qila -e -Mubarak’ which means the ‘Blessed Fort’. It was also said that the Kohinoor diamond was part of the Shah Jahan’s throne, known as the famous name; Peacock Throne, which was later abducted by Nadir Shah during the Persian Invasion in 1738.

Bahadur Shah Zafar, the final Mughal Emperor, became a symbol of the 1857 insurrection against the British dominion. The British tried him for treason in his own house, the Red Fort. The trial was held at Diwan-i-Khas, surrounded by the British court, and the emperor was judged guilty, and his title was removed from him. He was afterwards banished to Rangoon (now called Myanmar).

Picture Credit : Google 

Lasting between 38 and 45 minutes, the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 was recorded as the shortest war in history. It was an armed conflict between the U.K. and the Zanzibar Sultanate. The island of Zanzibar was a British protectorate. Following the unexpected death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on August 25, 1896, his cousin Khalid bin Barghash ascended the throne without the consent of the British Angered, the British served an ultimatum on Khalid to leave the palace. As Khalid refused to obey, the conflict broke out on August 27 at about 9.02 a.m. and within minutes, the palace was bombarded. Over 500 Zanzibari soldiers died. Khalid escaped. One British soldier was wounded. The same day, the pro-British Hamud bin Mohammed was named Sultan.

At exactly 09:00, General Lloyd Mathews ordered the British ships to commence the bombardment. At 09:02 Her Majesty's Ships Racoon, Thrush and Sparrow opened fire at the palace simultaneously. Thrush's first shot immediately dismounted an Arab 12-pounder cannon. Three thousand defenders, servants and slaves were present in the largely wooden palace, and even with barricades of crates, bales and rubber, there were many casualties from the high explosive shells. Despite initial reports that he had been captured and was to be exiled to India, Sultan Khalid escaped from the palace. A Reuters news correspondent reported that the sultan had "fled at the first shot with all the leading Arabs, who left their slaves and followers to carry on the fighting", but other sources state that he remained in the palace for longer. The shelling ceased at around 09:40, by which time the palace and attached harem had caught fire, the Sultan's artillery had been silenced and his flag cut down.

During the bombardment a small naval engagement occurred when, at 09:05, the obsolete Glasgow fired upon the St George using her armament of 7 nine-pounder guns and a Gatling gun, which had been a present from Queen Victoria to the sultan. The return fire caused Glasgow to sink, though the shallow harbour meant that her masts remained out of the water. Glasgow's crew hoisted a British flag as a token of their surrender, and they were all rescued by British sailors in launches. Thrush also sank two steam launches whose Zanzibari crews shot at her with rifles. Some land fighting occurred when Khalid's men fired on Raikes' askaris, with little effect, as they approached the palace. The fighting ceased with the end of the shelling. The British controlled the town and the palace, and by the afternoon Hamoud bin Muhammed, an Arab favourable to the British, had been installed as sultan with much reduced powers. The British ships and crews had fired around 500 shells, 4,100 machine gun rounds and 1,000 rifle rounds during the engagement.

Credit : Wikipedia 

PictureCredit : Google 

It may sound repulsive but English kings those days had male servants to attend to their toileting needs. It was King Henry VII who created the position in the early 16th Century. These servants were called "Grooms of the Stool", who helped the king undress, provided the needed items for his toilet visits and also monitored the king's diet and meal times to ensure he had no difficulty with regard to his bowel movements. Here the term "stool" refers to the portable commode that would have been carried around at all times for the king's use. However, there are no records to suggest that the servants cleaned the king's bottom after he used the toilet. Wondering how anybody would have opted for the job? Apparently, it was a coveted position in the king's privy chamber!

Surely it is one of the most repulsive jobs in history. Perhaps surprisingly, it was the sons of noblemen or members of the gentry that were usually awarded the job. Over time, they came to act more as personal secretaries to the king and were rewarded with high pay and some great benefits such as the right to lodgings in every palace, the Sovereign’s old clothes, and the option to have any used bedchamber furnishings. Of course, one might hope to be reimbursed handsomely for such a role, especially if the Groom actually cleansed the royal posterior himself. In all fairness though, there are no historical records to suggest that the Groom went to these extremes, although he would have almost certainly helped the monarch undress for each occasion.

Quite amazingly, the role of Groom of the Stool carried on all the way until 1901 when King Edward VII decided to abolish it.

Credit : Historic-UK

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The Great War (World War I) ended at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. At 5 a.m., Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. WWI left 9 million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded. At least 5 million civilians died from disease, starvation or exposure.

Berlin calls for talks

On October 3, Germany’s Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, appoints as chancellor Prince Max of Baden who has long advocated a negotiated peace with Britain, France and the United States. The very next day the new chancellor telegraphs U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to call for talks. The Allies demand Germany’s unconditional surrender and the Kaiser’s abdication. Pressure builds on Berlin. German forces, their spring offensive long exhausted, are beating a disorderly retreat. On November 3, German ally Austria-Hungary capitulates and signs an armistice.

German negotiators enter France

Tensions mount in Germany as naval forces mutiny at Kiel and a general strike is called on November 5. French officers, meanwhile, receive the order to allow safe passage of top German diplomats into Allied territory. On November 7, at 8.30 p.m., a ceasefire is sounded at La Capelle in northern France, near the Belgium border. It is the first in more than 50 months of war and allows the German delegation, led by Minister of State Matthias Erzberger, to cross into an Allied zone. The diplomats take a train to a secluded forest clearing near Compiegne to meet Allied forces commander General Ferdinand Foch.

Armistice signed

Night has fallen on the forest clearing when the messenger returns, on November 10, with the commander’s permission. Negotiations resume. For three more hours the Germans argue, clause by clause. Eventually there is a final version: by 5.20 a.m. on November 11, the armistice ending a war started four years earlier is signed in a train carriage in the woods. The news reaches the troops quickly, and is received with disbelief. Some commanders decide to continue fighting to the bitter end; others will not risk any further lives. On the stroke of 11 a.m. the ceasefire agreed just hours earlier is sounded by bugles and clarions along the hundreds of kilometres of front line that stretch across Europe. Soldiers gradually emerge from the trenches, stunned.

War is over

Celebrations erupt in the capitals of the Allied victors. Civilians pour into the streets, thronging the Place de la Concorde in Paris, Piccadilly Circus in London, New York’s Fifth Avenue, the Piazza Venezia in Rome. Church bells ring out at full peal and people dance in the streets.

Credit : The Hindu 

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Scientists have found the wreck of Ernest Shackleton's famous ship "Endurance" in the Antarctic, 107 years after it sank during his ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole.

A team of marine archaeologists and technicians located the wreck at a depth of 3,008 metres in the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The ship, crushed by sea ice, sank in 1915, forcing Shackleton and his men to make an incredible escape on foot and in small boats.

The project to find the lost ship was mounted by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT), using a South African icebreaker, Agulhas II, equipped with remotely operated submersibles.

"We have made polar history with the discovery of Endurance, and successfully completed the world's most challenging shipwreck search," said Dr John Shears, the mission's leader.

"The discovery of the wreck is an incredible achievement," he added.

The ship looks much the same as when photographed last time by Shackleton's filmmaker, Frank Hurley, in 1915. The masts are down, the rigging is tangled, and the hull is broadly coherent. Some damage is evident at the bow, presumably where the descending ship hit the seabed, and the anchors are present.

As the ship became damaged, the crew set up camp on the ice and lived there until it broke up five months after the ship sank.

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Ancient Peruvians munched on popcorn almost 7,000 years ago! Traces of ancient cobs, husks and stalks were unearthed at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two coastal sites that were once home to pre-historic settlements, hinting that the snack's popularity dates back as far as 4700 B.C. How did they prepare the crunchy treat? They roasted the cobs directly over coals or flames. Later inhabitants of Peru's northern coast would develop the world's oldest known popper - a shallow vessel with a handle and a hole on top around 300 A.D.

"Corn was first domesticated in Mexico nearly 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte," Dolores Piperno, co-author and curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said in a written statement. "Our results show that only a few thousand years later corn arrived in South America where its evolution into different varieties that are now common in the Andean region began."

With the hundreds of maize varieties known today, it's hard for scientists to know exactly how each strain of corn came about and when and where it originated. This is particularly true because corncobs and kernels didn't stay well preserved in the humid tropical forests between Central and South America, including Panama, which is the primary dispersal route for the crop after it first left Mexico over 8,000 years ago.

"Because there is so little data available from other places for this time period, the wealth of morphological information about the cobs and other corn remains at this early date is very important for understanding how corn became the crop we know today," said Piperno.

But popcorn isn't the oldest snack we've found to be eaten by prehistoric humans. Last year, scientists found fossilized plant remains stuck in the teeth of Neanderthal fossils, revealing that our ancestors ate a wide range of grains and plants in addition to meat.

Conveniently for paleobiologists, the mineralization process that forms fossils traps and preserves food particles and bacteria in the oral environment, leaving behind traceable clues of Paleolithic meals.

Credit : Huff Post

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November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar and has retained its name from the Latin word novem meaning 'nine'.

There are two theories. The first would have you believe that there used to be just 10 months in the Roman calendar. At some point, when they supposedly changed it to 12, the Romans added January and February at the front of the year, which pushed the other 10 months and their names off course. The second would have you believe that there were always 12 months, but New Year's Day used to be March 1 and the last month of the year was February. But over many decades and centuries, through a series of bureaucratic and political changes, the New Year holiday simply drifted back in the calendar until it landed on Jan. 1. 

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna is a physicist at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy and has conducted archaeo-astronomical studies to chart the precise lunar phases of ancient Rome's calendars. Interestingly, under the 10-month theory, the months weren't longer, she said. The Romans simply didn't bother to mark or measure the days in what we call now January and February because little to no agriculture happened in those months, and calendars at that time were developed primarily for farmers. "After a gap in the winter, the year started from Martius," she told Live Science.

But the Romans were a notoriously organized bunch, so why would they introduce two new months and then simply ignore the fact that many of their other named months no longer made sense? Well, the answer could be that naming conventions were a bit of a political quagmire back then — lots of people in power were jostling to rename months to aggrandize their origins. Emperor Caligula, for example, tried to have September changed to "Germanicus" in honor of his father, Sparavigna said. Emperor Domitian also had a go and tried to turn October into Domitianus.

But none of this went down terribly well with the Roman public, who as it turned out, were fairly conservative and didn't take well to change for change's sake. "These changes of names apparently lasted for a very short time," Sparavigna said. This aversion to change makes sense — after all, many of us today still resist changes to the way we measure things; the metric system is far from universal — and could partly explain why the authorities didn't alter the naming system when they introduced January and February. 

Credit : Live Science 

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'Widow' is the only female word in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term 'widower'.

A woman who has lost her husband by death and has not married again. The word comes (in Old English) from an Indo-European root meaning ‘be empty’, and may be compared with Sanskrit vidh ‘be destitute’, Latin viduus ‘bereft, widowed’, and Greek eitheos ‘unmarried man’.

The widow is an informal term for champagne, from a translation of French la Veuve Clicquot, a firm of wine merchants.

The Widow at Windsor Queen Victoria after the death of the Prince Consort, in reference to her prolonged withdrawal from public life; the phrase was used as the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1890).

Widow Twankey the name given to Aladdin's mother in in H. J. Byron's dramatization of the story of Aladdin as a pantomime. She was so named in reference to a kind of green tea which was then popular (Byron's play had a number of jokes about China tea). Widow Twankey is now one of the stock characters for this pantomime.

Widow’s cruse an apparently small supply that proves inexhaustible, with biblical allusion to 1 Kings 17:10–16, in the story of the widow to whom Elijah was sent for sustenance. When he asked her for bread, she replied that all she had for herself and her son was ‘an handful of meal…and a little oil in a cruse’; Elijah told her to make a cake of it for him first, and then to make food for herself and her son, since by God's decree neither meal nor oil should be exhausted.

widow's mite a small monetary contribution from someone who is poor, with biblical allusion to Mark 12:42–44 which tells the story of a poor widow who gave to the Temple treasury ‘two mites, which make a farthing’; Jesus, who saw her, told his disciples that she had given more than the richest contributor, because she had given all that she had.

Widow’s peak a V-shaped growth of hair towards the centre of the forehead, especially one left by a receding hairline in a man; held to resemble the peak of a cap traditionally worn by a widow.

Widow’s weeds black clothes worn by a widow in mourning, traditionally including a crape veil and broad white cuffs or ‘weepers’.

Credit :  Oxford Reference 

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On 06 August 1945, during the final stages of WWII the world's first atom bomb nicknamed 'Little Boy', was dropped by American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, over Hiroshima city. Approximately 80,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast and 35,000 injured.

Another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki city, killing nearly 40,000 people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender.

The Enola Gay remained in service for several years before being given to the Smithsonian Institution on July 3, 1949. It was later disassembled and stored in Maryland. In 1984 work began on restoring the aircraft, which was in dire need of repair. Exposure to the elements had damaged the plane, and it had been vandalized. In addition, birds had built nests in various compartments. The project ultimately spanned some 20 years. In 1995 a portion of the plane served as the centrepiece of a controversial exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, D.C. The exhibit had originally been scheduled to include artifacts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and highlight the debate over the decision to use the bomb. Amid fierce opposition, however, the original plans were canceled, and a much scaled-back version was staged. In 2003 the fully restored Enola Gay was put on display at the NASM’s Steven F. Udar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

Credit :  Britannica 

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On 6 September 1965, India crossed the international border into Pakistan, marking the official start of the 1965 war. On 01 September, Pakistan had launched Operation Grand Slam to capture Akhnoor in Jammu, which would sever communications and cut off supply routes to Indian troops.

Known as the Second Kashmir War, it saw IAF and PAF aircrafts in combat for the first time since independence and some of the largest tank battles since WWII. The five-week war caused thousands of casualties on both sides and ended in a U.N. mandated ceasefire and the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.

A key operation in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War was Operation Grand Slam. It refers to a plan to attack the vital Akhnoor Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir constructed in May 1965 by the Pakistan Army. The bridge was the lifeline of Jammu and Kashmir and the Pakistan army thought that this could be used to threaten Jammu which was an important logistics point for the Indian Army. As the stated military goals were not achieved, the operation ended in a defeat for the Pakistan Army, and they were subsequently forced to withdraw following a counterattack by the Indian Army.

The Tashkent Agreement, signed by India's Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan's President Ayub Khan, ended the 17-day August-September 1965 war between Pakistan and India. In Sept. 1965, a cease-fire was secured by the United Nations Security Council. Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin, who had invited the parties to Tashkent, negotiated the deal. With this agreement, India and Pakistan announced their firm resolve to restore their countries' usual and friendly relations. They take into account the achievement of the following targets for the welfare of the people of India and Pakistan.

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Today, we see tacos everywhere and in every form - carnitas, barbacoa, al pastor, adobada, and countless other variations of this corn-based tortilla wrap in authentic Mexican food. Though the taco came from Mexico, it seems to be one of the most universally loved foods, spreading worldwide.

The origin of the word taco comes from the Nahuatl’s “tlahco,” translating to “half, or in the middle” in English, describing the way we fold this tasty flatbread before eating it. 

The origin of tacos begins with corn. Sometime around 3,000 BC, Mexicans excavated the “Valle de Tehuac” and hybridized grasses to create the corn plant. Indigenous cultures viewed corn as the foundation of humanity or the seed of life. They even believed humans were built of corn. 

Ancient culture revered corn because it quite literally kept them alive and improved their overall quality of life drastically. 

Corn kernels are nixtamalized with an alkaline treatment to remove the husk, then ground into a fine corn flour base of our favorite tortillas. Historians date the first traces of nixtamalized corn back to the Olmec culture back in 1,500 BC, meaning they likely included a basic corn flatbread in their diets. 

The famous Moctezuma used these corn tortillas to scoop and hold his food after a hot stone preparation. Years later, after Hernan Cortez overthrew the Aztec empire, he fed his soldiers banquets of corn tortillas and pork. 

Authentic Mexican tacos in their modern form developed sometime in the 19th century in the booming Mexican silver mines. The first true type of taco was the “taco de minero,” or “miner’s taco.” 

And though we can’t say for sure, experts believe that “taco” referred initially to gunpowder wrapped in a thin piece of paper, used to blow up holes in the rock face and excavate the ore. It’s easy to see how a tasty tortilla wrap may have resembled them, earning the taco’s modern moniker. A small taco, taquito, looks exactly like a small stick of dynamite and might burn as badly as one for those not well acquainted with chile spice!

From there, tacos spread through the working-class of Mexico, with taquerias popping up to offer modestly priced meals. Migrant women brought the taco to Mexico City to sell, and the city quickly transformed into the country’s biggest taco hub. 

In 1908, the city of Cuautla, Morelos birthed tacos made with sausage, chorizo, green sauce and pork rinds, mole Verde, and many more modern favorites. Eventually, these tacos made their way to the capital, Cuernavaca. 

Credit : Uno Casa

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Burrito is a popular Mexican dish consisting of a grilled or steamed tortilla wrapped into a cylindrical shape and filled with varied ingredients. Did you know that the word “burrito” means “little donkey” in Spanish? This could be because a burrito can carry many things just as a donkey can. Another theory is that the stuffed tortilla looks like the bundles often carried by the pack animal.

Another popular theory tells of an unnamed street vendor in Ciudad Juárez, who created the burrito in the 1940s, to sell to poor children at a nearby school. His affectionate nickname for the children was “burritos”, slang for “slow” or “dimwitted”, and that was how the food got its name.

There is one more theory, according to which the burrito was invented in Sonora (a region in northwest Mexico) as a food that was easy to carry around while traveling. Since traveling was commonly done by donkey, the burrito was named after the travel companion. Gustavo Arellano, who wrote the book “Taco: USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America” and is an expert on the topic, believes this theory is the most plausible, since Sonora is the region of Mexico known for growing wheat, which is the main ingredient in flour tortillas.

The original Mexican burritos (which are still consumed in Mexico today) are small and thin. They are filled with basic ingredients like meat, fish, cheese, beans, rice and hot peppers – but never all together, just one or two of these ingredients in a single burrito. Migrant workers from Mexico had possibly brought burritos with them to the United States between the 1940s and the 1960s. Americans quickly fell in love with the flavourful dish, and taquerias serving burritos started springing up in Southern California in the following decades.

The arrival of the burrito the States helped catalyze its transformation into the big, juicy super-burrito we know today. The Mission-style burrito, also known as the San Francisco burrito, was invented by El Faro, a grocery store in San Francisco’s Mission District, in 1961. El Faro’s owner, Febronio Ontiveros, claims to have come up with the extra-large burrito that contained rice, guacamole and sour cream alongside the standard fillings of meat, beans and cheese.

Of course, that’s not how the burrito story ends. Sixty years later, burritos in dizzying varieties are available in restaurants and grocery stores across the globe. Pretty incredible for a dish that started as a functional meal for travelers!

Credit : Quesada 

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March 8 is celebrated as International Women's Day. Did you know that the origin of this historic day is one of the most powerful stories on women's tenacity?  

We live in the 21st Century. But get ready for some time-travel since we will be going to the previous century and even beyond. Today, when elections are held, women queuing up at polling booths is a common sight. But this wasn't the norm always. Till the 19th Century, the world over, women were not allowed to vote. (In fact, in several parts of the world. for centuries, women were barred even from studying or taking up certain kinds of professions.) Before that, a handful of regions allowed women to vote, under very specific conditions. Even among those few regions, some of them snatched back that right from women over the years. Gradually though, after the 1850s, things began to change, and women's suffrage was becoming a reality.

What is women's suffrage?

 Suffrage is the right to vote in elections, and so, women's suffrage refers to women having that right. In a landmark move in 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country globally where women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. And that came about only after years of effort from women. By the beginning of the 20th Century, Australia followed suit. Even during World War I, the likes of Britain and the U.S. still did not have women's suffrage. Women decided it won't do, and being who they are, aware, strong, and resilient - they refused to cow down to the intimidation they faced for demanding voting rights.

Standing together

During the beginning of the 20th - Century, women decide they've had enough of not just the lack of voting rights but also of the general unfair treatment meted out to them. In 1908, thousands of women in the U.S. march "through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights". The following year, the National Woman's Day in the U.S. is celebrated on February 28 (and on the last Sunday of February for the next few years). Clearly, the suppression of women is confined to not just one region, and so the fight for equality slowly finds resonance in places far and wide, sparking women's marches over the next few years. In 1910, during the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, German feminist Clara Zetkin proposes each year that all the countries earmark the same day - a Women's Day - for women to press for their demands. The conference, with over 100 women from 17 countries and various walks of life, offers its unanimous approval for the suggestion, and the International Women's Day is born. Over the next few decades, among other rights, women win the right to vote and contest in elections in most parts of the world.

Why March 8?

During the course of World War I (from 1914 to 1918), thousands of women in Russia gather to underscore the need for global compassion and peace, and to condemn the mindless deaths of millions of soldiers in the ongoing war. On February 23 (the last Sunday of the month), 1917, Russian women start a massive strike over the death of soldiers, and in four days, bring the Czar (Russian ruler) down while winning the right to vote. The date was February 23 on the Julian calendar used by Russia. On the Gregorian calendar, more commonly followed everywhere else, that historic day was March 8!

Today

While the International Women's Day certainly turned the spotlight on several issues women face globally, the fight against inequality and suppression continues to this day. Though many of the advertisements and events during the run up to the day will have you believe that it is all about just celebrating women for a day, in reality the day is a recurring reminder of women's collective strength, courage, achievements, and power. It is also an implicit reminder that there will be no need for this fight or struggle if we create an equitable society.

Kolam

Created every morning (and sometimes evening too) by women for many centuries now, this threshold ritual takes shape to wish for the household's wealth and prosperity. But it is more than just that. Traditionally, the kolams have been created with dry rice powder or wet rice flour. Intricate patterns emerge, as if magically, through a sequence of lines and dots with rice powder flowing down gently between the fingers. For a dash of colour, wet red soil is used as border. Rice powder is used since it feeds the many insects and birds that cross the threshold. There are other styles of wall and floor art-such as rangoli, aripana, mandana, etc- created by women in different regions. But there are hardly any like the kolams that disappear every day only to be born again the next morning. Though the kolam patterns and the powders used are changing today, neither its creativity nor complexity is. Which explains its versatility, since you can find them on everything from bags to cushion covers!

Mandana

This is a floor and wall art tradition nurtured by generations of women in west and central India. But nowhere does the splendour of this art form come alive as gloriously as in the villages of the Meena tribe in Rajasthan. Mandana art is created during special events and festivals, especially Deepavali. Through simple shapes and dots, wall and floors are covered in animal and plant motifs and decorative designs. The preparation of the surface is as elaborate as the patterns themselves since they are cured using clay and cow dung. The designs themselves are coaxed out of bright white chalk and red clay that stand out dramatically against brown walls. Unlike kolams, mandana creations last longer. But they are just as imaginative, complex and compelling. Mandana art also forges a deep connection among the women in the community since they all work together work on their creations, especially the larger ones.

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Tracing its roots

The birth of Indian-Chinese cuisine can be attributed to Chinese migrants who moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Bombay (now Mumbai) in the late 1700s. One of the first recorded migrants who travelled to India for material prospects was Yang Tai Chow, a Chinese businessman, in 1778. With more number of Chinese migrants arriving, Chinatown was established in Calcutta,

Like most immigrant communities, the Chinese acquired and incorporated Indian sensibilities into their food and this eventually led to the birth of the famous Indian-Chinese cuisine. According to reports, the first Indian Chinese restaurant called Eau Chew, opened in Calcutta. The dishes on their menu were a blend of Chinese ingredients such as soy sauce and noodles, and Indian spices. The dishes impressed the locals, and eventually, a number of such food joints sprung in Calcutta

An iconic dish

Mumbai, which too had a substantial number of Chinese immigrants, also witnessed a similar trend. One of the most iconic moments was the invention of chicken manchurian, which today is synonymous with Chinese food in India. Invented by Nelson Wang, the then caterer of Chinese food at the Cricket Club of India, chicken manchurian was first prepared in Mumbai in 1975. Wang, who was born in Calcutta moved to Bombay for work.

According to popular legend, he created the dish by tossing soy sauce, cornstarch and chicken together in a pan, when a customer demanded a new dish. Now, there are a few varieties of manchurian available in our restaurants.

Fan-favourites

Though the Chinese community in India has dwindled significantly, the dishes are a fan-favourite According to reports, there is a significant rise in the consumption of restaurant food among the millennials, and many choose Indian-Chinese food, as it is easily available across the country. The predominance of gravy and rice makes Indian-Chinese a comfort cuisine.

Indian-Chinese dishes have become a quintessential part of Indian cuisine, that most of these items can hardly be found anywhere outside the country, even in China. Several Indian-Chinese dishes bear very little resemblance to the food actually eaten in China. These dishes include chilli chicken or paneer, spring rolls, chowmein and fried rice, and date pancakes.

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The 1870s voyage of HMS Challenger lasted 1,000 days and covered more than 68,000 nautical miles. Many consider it to be the first true oceanographic expedition because it yielded a wealth of information about the marine environment. Those aboard identified many organisms then new to science, and they gathered data at 362 oceanographic stations on temperature, currents, water chemistry, and ocean floor deposits. The scientific results of the voyage were published in a 50-volume, 29,500-page report that took 23 years to compile. Specialists in numerous scientific disciplines studied the collections and data, and helped produce the reports. Also, the reports written by members of the Challenger expedition provided rich descriptions of the flora, fauna and cultures of the lands visited.

The HMS Challenger originally was designed as a British warship—a steam corvette in the Royal Navy—outfitted with 17 guns and an engine capable of over 1,200 horsepower. The 200-foot ship was three-masted, square-rigged, and built of wood.

In 1870, Dr. C. Wyville Thomson suggested that the Royal Society of London ask the British government for the use of one of its ships for an extended research cruise. The government agreed, and the HMS Challenger was modified to conduct oceanic research. Ammunition and 15 of the guns were removed from the ship and replaced with laboratories, workrooms, and storage space. The HMS Challenger used sails rather than the steam engine most of the time to allow for frequent stops when collecting data. The steam engine was used only during dredging operations to collect samples from the depths of the ocean floor.

The science and ship crew consisted of six civilian/scientific staff, led by Dr. C. Wyville Thomson. It also included 21 naval officers, including Captain George Nares (replaced by Captain Frank Thomson in 1875), and approximately 216 crew. When the voyage ended in 1876, only 144 crew remained on the ship. Seven people had died, five left when Captain Nares did, 26 were left in hospitals or were unable to continue the journey, and several had deserted at the various ports of call.

Credit : Ocean Explorer 

Picture Credit : Google