ProQuizzinLeague Profile picture
Sep 27, 2020 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
#OnThisDay in 1962, 'Silent Spring', one of the most influential books of all time, was published. It takes its title from the ruinous imagery of John Keats' 1819 ballad 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'.

A Thread: Image
By the early 1960s, Rachel Carson was not an unknown author. Having trained as a biologist, she joined the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1951, she published 'The Sea Around Us' which was a bestseller.

+
She would spend much of the next ten years focussing on harmful effects of pesticides and this is how she came across a newfound antagonist.

DDT had been around for quite some time. During the days of World War II, it was used to treat malaria.

+
USA of the 1950s saw an unprecedented boom and many wartime products were funnelled into civilian use. Agricultural fields were being rained with DDT to get rid of pest and maximize crop yield. Instantaneous results meant a blind faith slowly built up around the substance.

+
This is why, when Rachel Carson's work appeared in 1962, the book created such an outcry. She was meticulous in exploring the science of pesticides, showing that they were far more toxic than most people realized.

+
She procured confidential information from government agencies, listing when and where specific individuals had died. She accused these companies of greed and malpractice and condemned their profit-centric model at the risk of causing irreparable damage to humans and wildlife.

+
She had already been operated on for breast cancer. While researching for the book, she was suffering from a duodenal ulcer and rheumatoid arthritis. Her cancer had metastasized requiring another operation and radiotherapy. Large chunks of the of the book were written in bed.

+
Shortly after publishing, the book had caught the attention of President Kennedy and she testified before the Science Advisory Committee in one of her last public appearances. She passed away in 1964.

+
In 1969, the year Neil Armstrong walked on moon, the U.S. Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act. In the same year the use of DDT as a pesticide was effectively banned. The next year, the Environmental Protection Agency was established.

+
One person without a Y-chromosome did the unthinkable job of standing up to corporates and the government against a massively popular substance with proven wartime success, battled personal agonies and the wrath of officials simultaneously and eventually got it banned.

+
If the country can still hear bird songs in 2020, it is courtesy a single individual who grew up loving the nature around her village in an impoverished village in Pennsylvania. Rachel Carson changed the world and made it a better place to breathe in.

[END]

#IndiaGyanKaBhandar

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with ProQuizzinLeague

ProQuizzinLeague Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @PQL_official

Oct 2, 2020
On this day in 1869, #MahatmaGandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat.

In 1982, Richard Attenborough's film 'Gandhi' raked in eight Oscars. The film had an ensemble cast and crew, even in lesser roles. Many were already famous and many became legends in the years to come.

THREAD:
In 1962, Motilal Kothari, while working for the Indian High Commission in London, asked Richard Attenborough whether he would direct a film on Gandhi. He got Mountbatten to have a word with Jawaharlal Nehru who agreed with the script. The film is dedicated to all three of them.
Nehru's choice for the role of Gandhi was Alec Guinness. Peter Finch, Harvey Finney, Anthony Hopkins and even Dustin Hoffman were considered at one point of time. The role finally went to a certain Krishna Pandit Bhanji. Ben Kingsley, as he was better known, won an Oscar for it.
Read 18 tweets
Sep 26, 2020
"The Man Who Saved The World"

September 26, 1983. Stanislav Petrov, a lt. colonel in the Soviet Strategic Air Defence Forces, stations himself as the duty officer at the command centre of Oko, a brand new early warning system built to detect any nuclear attack from the US.

+ Image
It's half past midnight. All of a sudden, the warning light comes on. A siren starts screaming. This means a missile has been launched from US. A second warning light appears and the siren screams of another missile. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth. The writing is on the wall.

+
Everyone in the room freezes for a while. Petrov finds himself in a dilemma. He has clear orders, i.e., pick up the phone and order an appropriate response. The window of reaction is so small that if a split second passes, there might not be any missile bases left in USSR.

+
Read 8 tweets
Sep 19, 2020
Last week we added 13 questions from each of the 13 editions of the Indian Premier League, at #IndiaGyanKaBhandar to make #IndiaKnowledgeKaSuperpower.
The D-Day has come. As the nation gears up for the first match of #IPL2020, let's take a look at the answers of those questions: Image
2008

Which cricketer was CSK’s preferred choice for the role of skipper whose decision to represent the city he was brought up ultimately resulted in MS Dhoni being roped in as the most expensive player in the inaugural edition?

Answer: @virendersehwag

#IPL Image
2009

@Bazmccullum scored a mammoth unbeaten 158 runs in the very first match of the tournament. However, who was the first Indian to score a century in IPL?

Answer: @im_manishpandey, then 19-year old, while playing for RCB against Deccan Chargers.

#IPL Image
Read 15 tweets
Sep 16, 2020
Rome won the bid to host the 1908 Olympics. London took over hosting duties as the Italian government had to divert funds to the reconstruction of the city of Naples. The obstacle: Mt. Vesuvius erupted in April 1906. For Italians, April truly turned out to be the cruellest month. Image
The New York Times noted that the Neapolitans were rather glad. They said the eruption of Vesuvius was in preparation for the arrival of King Edward, who left Marseilles on April 3 on the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, accompanied by Queen Alexandra and were due a visit.

+
The King and Queen did indeed visit Naples while the clean up operation was underway and later made a cash donation to aid recovery.

However, Queen Alexandra's tryst with Italy and the Olympics did not end here.

+
Read 9 tweets
Sep 15, 2020
Agatha Christie turns 130 today.

From an unresolved mystery at a hotel in Mussoorie inspiring her debut novel to the adaptation of her long running play 'The Mousetrap', let us navigate through the many Indian connections of the Queen of Crime!

#Thread Image
Summer of 1911: Frances Garnett-Orme, a British spiritualist, arrived at Mussoorie's Savoy. She was followed by another spiritualist, E. Mountstephen. One day, while Eva had gone to Lucknow, Frances was found dead, with traces of poison. Eva went scot-free due to lack of evidence Image
The case intrigued the British populace in India and it reached Rudyard Kipling who sent the details of the mystery to his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The facts of the case were passed on to Agatha Christie and the case was fictionalized into 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'. Image
Read 12 tweets
Sep 15, 2020
On this day in 1959, India's public broadcaster @DDNational, had its humble beginnings.

Initially starting with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio, it now operates across the length and breadth of the country.

Did you know it was a part of @AkashvaniAIR till 1976?
The iconic logo of Doordarshan was done by Devashis Bhattacharyya, a student of the National Institute of Design, who began with the human eye and drew two curves around it. A few years back, @prasarbharati invited designs for a new logo and announced five winners.

Credit: HT Image
Pandit Ravi Shankar composed the Doordarshan tune, along with Ali Ahmed Hussain Khan.

Panditji also made the theme of 1982 Asiad, when DD started airing in colour.

In ZNMD, where 3 friends go on a trip to Spain, in a bout of nostalgia one evening, @iHrithik imitates the tune.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(