Local

2018: A shooting range opens in New Town Business Club on August 15. The facility is inaugurated by chairman of New Town Kolkata Development Authority, Debashis Sen, who pulls the trigger of one of the five 0.177 air rifles acquired by the club. The range has slots for five shooters and the targets are a standard 10m away.

National

A one-rupee coin.

1757: The first rupee coin is minted in India on August 19. It is minted by the East India Company in Calcutta and is based on the rupiya coin that Sher Shah Suri had issued in the 1600s. The Company established the Calcutta Mint under a treaty with the Nawab of Bengal, and the coin is legal tender in the province of Bengal.

Dr. Radha Gobinda Kar (copies from a photograph at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital).

1852: Radha Gobinda Kar is born in Santragachhi, near Calcutta, on August 23. He becomes a doctor after training at the University of Edinburgh. On returning, he notices medical students struggling with the language and begins translating and writing medical books in Bengali. He treats needy patients for free and sees the need for a hospital independent of the British. To raise funds, he pitches his idea to guests outside random weddings and eventually opens Asia’s first private medical college. Upon his demise, this institute is renamed RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

1942: Mahatma Gandhi launches the Quit India Movement on August 8 at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee. With his call to “do or die”, he asks Indians to boycott the British government till the latter leaves the country. Almost the entire Congress leadership is imprisoned without trial within hours of the speech and thousands more in the years to come. The movement ends in 1945 with the release of jailed freedom fighters.

Global

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier

1737: Antoine-Augustin Parmentier is born on 12 August. The French pharmacist and agronomist is remembered for popularising potatoes in Europe, a vegetable once thought to be unfit for human consumption. He employs various publicity stunts such as hosting important dinners featuring potato dishes, gifting potato blossoms to royalty, and placing guards around potato patches by day, to suggest their value, and withdrawing them at night to encourage theft. Eventually, during a year of poor harvest, potatoes stave off famine and save lives.

1861: Ranavalona I, also known as the Mad Monarch of Madagascar, dies on August 16. The queen is known for her strong leadership and efforts to modernise the African nation. She used forced labour as a means of tax payment and a traditional practice of trials where the accused were forced to ingest poison. These, along with religious persecution, wars, and disease, saw the population decline by half during her rule.

1883: An explosion at 10.02am on August 27 from Krakatoa, a volcano in what is later Indonesia, creates the loudest recorded sound in history. The eruption, lasting from May to October, kills nearly 1,20,000 people and destroys 70 per cent of the island, making it one of the deadliest known eruptions. The climax, in August, produces a blast measured at 180dB from 160km away, and is heard even in Mauritius, that is 4,800km away.

Sports

1947: Manolete, one of the greatest matadors in history, is gored to death by Islero, a powerful bull, in a Spanish bullring on August 29. Islero is the fifth bull Manolete faced that day and the latter dies in the hospital, aged 30. Manolete is remembered for his ability to remain motionless as bulls charged close. He excelled in the kill and popularised the Manoletina — a move in which he waved a red cloth stick before delivering the final blow with his sword.

Pather Panchali

1955: Satyajit Ray’s directorial debut, Pather Panchali, releases on August 26. Produced by the West Bengal government, it is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel. It is the first film from independent India to garner major international attention and establishes Ray as a leading filmmaker. Pather Panchali is often hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, although some critics argue that it romanticises poverty.

Bhimsen Joshi

1988: Mile sur mera tumhara, a music video promoting national integration, is telecast for the first time after Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s speech on Independence Day. Developed by bodies like Doordarshan, the song is composed by Bhimsen Joshi, and sung in many Indian languages, by the likes of Lata Mangeshkar. It features national heroes like actor Amitabh Bachchan, dancer Mallika Sarabhai and footballers PK Banerjee and Chuni Goswami, and proves immensely popular.