Missile Inventor - King Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan, the celebrated Tiger of Mysore, made critical innovations in the Mysorean rockets that his father Hyder Ali first used as weapons of war, and built a 6,000-strong artillery brigade in the 18th century, a technology later borrowed by the British when they went to war.

Over 200 years later, the Ministry of Defence has finally decided to give Tipu and Srirangapatna their due when it announced it would mark the Rocket Court, the laboratory where Tipu tested his mini-missiles at the birthplace of rocket technology. 

Refrences can be found to prove the use of rockets in the battle of Pollilur (1780) in which the Britishwere defeated - a scene celebrated on the walls of Darya Daulat in Srirangapatna - a strong contributory cause is thought to have been the explosion of Colo Baillie’s ammunitiontumbrils, touched off by Mysore rockets. It is interesting to note that no other armies seem to have used rockets at this period or just prior to that. Where the Mysore rockets simply modifications of the cannon ball?Certainly not as can be seen by the Interest of the British in Mysore rockets.These were different in that they were not accompanied by the recoil as in a cannon.

  

Thanks to the interest of the British in these rockets, they were studied more scientifically!! The industrial revolution provided the tools and materials needed to further the development of rockets. William Congreve was given the job of improving the range of the rockets for possible use against the French. However, it was as late as the end of second world war that Rockets were used as effective weapons.

Rockets were also used in the 3rd and 4th Anglo-Mysore Wars as well; although they caused much confusion and fear especially when used against massed troops or cavalry, they were too inaccurate to tilt decisively the fortunes of battle in favour of Tipu. The Galaxy bazzar (Taramandal Pet) is the place were the rockets and fireworks were manufactured.These rockets are supposed to have consisted of bamboo poles with sharp ends.

Historians say after the fall of Tipu in 1799, 600 launchers, 700 serviceable rockets and 9,000 empty rockets were found in the Rocket Court. Two of the specimens are still preserved in Royal Artillery Museum in London. 

The sorry state of affairs is that the only specimen of the Mysore rockets used by Tipu Sultan is in London in the Royal artillery museum .The Rocket court in Srirangapatnam now lies in ruins, being used as a public toilet.Its indeed worth investigating the origins of the rockets in India prior to the Mysore Rockets. The fate of rockets in Mysore seems to have suffered the same fate as rest of the scientific and technical developments in British India.

The recent interest in the rockets of Mysore was stimulated by our former President APJ Abdul Kalam. In his book "Wings of Fire" he mentions, how he saw the picture of the Mysore's Rocket war in NASA. The fact that today India is not inferior to any other nation in its potential to develop and launch rockets is very reassuring. The Tiger of Mysore, Tipu Sultan would have indeed felt proud of this fact.

Never Beats - Chanakya

Chanakya (370–283 BCE) is considered as the pioneer of the field of economics and political science and his work is thought of as an important precursor to Classical Economics. In the Western world, he has been referred to as The Hindu Machiavelli.

Chanakya was a teacher to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta (c. 340–293 BCE) - the first emperor in the archaeologically recorded history to rule the complete Indian Subcontinent. Chanakya is generally considered to be the architect of Chandragupta's rise to power at a young age. Traditionally, he is also identified by the names Kautilya and Vishnu Gupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise called Arthaśāstra.

Selected Quotes of Chanakya are:

1. A man is great by deeds, not by birth.
    
2. A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the Supreme abode.
    
3. As long as your body is healthy and under control and death is distant, try to save your soul; when death is immanent what can you do?
    
4. Even if a snake is not poisonous,
   it should pretend to be venomous.
    
5. As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.
    
6. The happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquility is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.
    
7. The fragrance of flowers spreads
   only in the direction of the wind.
   But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.
    
8. It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.
    
9. The earth is supported by the power of truth; it is the power of truth that makes the sun shine and the winds blow; indeed all things rest upon truth.
    
10. The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody. ! It will destroy you.
     
11. Do not reveal what you have thought upon doing, but by wise council keep it secret being determined to carry it into execution.
     
12. Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years.
    For the next five years, scold them.
    By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend.
    Your grown up children are your best friends.
     
13. There is some self-interest behind every friendship.
    There is no Friendship without self-interests.
    This is a bitter truth.
     
14. Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be
    and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply
    and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.
     
15. Once you start a working on something,
    don't be afraid of failure and
    don't abandon it.
    People who work sincerely are the happiest.
     
16. We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.
     
17. The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.
     
18. Education is the best friend.
    An educated person is respected everywhere.
    Education beats the beauty and the youth.
     
19. The life of an uneducated man is as useless as the tail of a dog which neither covers its rear end, nor protects it from the bites of insects.
     
20. Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.
     
21. He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.
     
22. God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple.
     
23. The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.
     
24. As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.
     
25. Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.
     
26. Whores don’t live in company of poor men, citizens never support a weak company and birds don’t build nests on a tree that doesn’t bear fruits.
     
27. There is poison in the fang of the serpent, in the mouth of the fly and in the sting of a scorpion; but the wicked man is saturated with it.
     
28. He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.
     
29. There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.
     
30. Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.
     
31. O wise man! Give your wealth only to the worthy and never to others. The water of the sea received by the clouds is always sweet.
     
32. The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.
     
33. If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?
     
34. One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.
     
35. The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

Alexander - The sign of Victory horse Bucephalus

The story of wondrous horse, Bucephalus, the horse that Alexander the Great rode for thousands of miles and through many battles to create his mighty empire.

The legend begins with Philoneicus, a Thessalian bringing a wild horse to Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. Philip was angry at Phinoneicus for bringing such an unstable horse to him but Alexander had watched Bucephalus and set his father, Philip, a challenge. Although Alexander was only 12 years old he had noticed that Bucephalus was shying away from his own shadow. Alexander gently led Bucephalus into the sun so that his shadow was behind him. Eventually Bucephalus allowed Alexander to ride him, much to the public humiliation of Philip. Philip gained face by commenting "Look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee". Alexander named the horse Bucephalus because the horse's head seemed "as broad as a bulls".

Bucephalus, the mighty stallion, died of battle wounds in 326B.C in Alexander's last battle. Alexander founded the city of Bucephala (thought to be the modern town of Jhelum, Pakistan) in memory of his wonderful horse.

Like his hero and ancestor Achillis, Alexander viewed his horses as "known to excel all others-for they are immortal. Poseiden gave them to my father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself"

Thomas Alva Edison - The Failed Inventions

Thomas Alva Edison held 1,093 patents for different inventions. Many of them, like the lightbulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, were brilliant creations that have a huge influence on our everyday life. However, not everything he created was a success; he also had a few failures.

One concept that never took off was Edison's interest in using cement to build things. He formed the Edison Portland Cement Co. in 1899, and made everything from cabinets (for phonographs) to pianos and houses. Unfortunately, at the time, concrete was too expensive and the idea was never accepted. Cement wasn't a total failure, though. His company was hired to build Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

From the beginning of the creation of motion pictures, many people tried to combine film and sound to make "talking" motion pictures. Here you can see to the left an example of an early film attempting to combine sound with pictures made by Edison's assistant, W.K.L. Dickson. By 1895, Edison had created the Kinetophone--a Kinetoscope (peep-hole motion picture viewer) with a phonograph that played inside the cabinet. Sound could be heard through two ear tubes while the viewer watched the images. This creation never really took off, and by 1915 Edison abandoned the idea of sound motion pictures.