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.

#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: 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.

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"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.

+ 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.

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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: 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

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. 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.

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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 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

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

#IPL Quiz

We are adding 13 questions on IPL to #IndiaGyanKaBhandar to make #IndiaKnowledgeKaSuperpower, with one from each season, arranged chronologically.

To answer them, please retweet and quote your answers there. You may RT individual questions as well. Enjoy!

THREAD 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?

The 1936 Olympics was meant to be a display of Aryan supremacy.

A grandson of slaves won 4 gold medals to dispel the myth in Hitler's den.

In his country, he still couldn't ride in the front of the bus.

Jesse Owens, one of the greatest Olympians, was born on this day in 1913! At nine his family moved to Cleveland.

When a teacher asked his name, he answered, "J.C.," which stood for James Cleveland.

The teacher misunderstood his Southern accent as 'Jesse' and the name struck.

When George Ferris was exhibiting his original Ferris Wheel, when Eadward Muybridge was showing the zoopraxiscope, a young Indian monk represented Hinduism at the World Parliament of Religions.

On September 11, 1893, Swami Vivekananda was greeted to a standing ovation. The World Parliament of Religions was being held for the first time as part of the Columbian Exposition, a world fair organized to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival.

It went on from September 11-27 at what is now the Art Institute of Chicago.

A chance viewing of de Sica's 'Bicycle Thieves' opened a floodgate for a young Delhi University student.

He worked in the local theatre scene, moved to Bombay, often wrote films without any credits and is now a familiar face in global cinema.

Happy Birthday, @anuragkashyap72! Anurag Kashyap chucked his Zoology ambitions and arrived in Mumbai in 1993 with Rs. 5000 in his pocket which he soon exhausted.

He slept on benches and shacked up at the hostel room of Imtiaz Ali, who was doing his post-grad at Xavier Institute of Communications.

Most of you have heard someone uttering "God bless you" when you sneezed in front of them.

Ever wondered where did it originate from?

It harks back to the days of Pope Gregory I, who was born during a tumultuous time. The Plague of Justinian had already started wreaking havoc. Even when he was sworn into his papacy in 590 AD, an outbreak of bubonic plague was raging in the eastern Roman Empire.

Pope Gregory I ordered a series of endless prayers, as sneezing was regarded as a sign of the disease.

The phrase "God bless you" is attributed to him.

#OnThisDay in 1666, the Great Fire of London was somehow extinguished after ravaging the city for five days. Over 80,000 Londoners were left homeless when, in the early hours of September 2, a fire that began in a bakery on Pudding Lane swiftly grew to devastate the entire city. The fire had its seeds in the preceding year. June 1665 turned out to be unbearably hot. It encouraged the spread of diseases given the city's unhygienic conditions. A new wave of bubonic plague broke out. The subsequent dry spell acted as the catalyst for the Great Fire as well.

#NationalSportsDay in India commemorates the birthday of Major Dhyan Chand, one of the finest sportspersons the country has ever produced.

Did you know despite winning three Olympic Golds, his best match was none of those games and was instead played on Indian soil? Back in those days, the Beighton Cup was the ultimate achievement for hockey players and Dhyan Chand said it was his "life's ambition" to win the coveted trophy for his home team Jhansi Heroes.

#OnThisDay in 1950, Althea Gibson defeated Barbara Knapp in her debut USLTA tournament match. She was the first African-American woman to compete at what is now known as the US Open.

Did you know she was NYC's women's paddle tennis champion when she was barely 12?

THREAD Althea Gibson was born into a family of sharecroppers. The Great Depression hit the family hard and in 1930, they moved to Harlem. The city had blocked off some streets to traffic. The area was barricaded so that neighbourhood children could play sports.