02 August - Pingali Venkayya birth annivesary

Pingali Venkayya ( 02 August 1876 – 04 July 1963) was an Indian freedom fighter and the designer of the flag on which the Indian national flag was based. He was born at Bhatlapenumarru, near Machilipatnam, in what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Various so-called national flags had been used by members of the Indian independence movement prior to independence being achieved in 1947. Venkayya's version was first designed for the Indian National Congress and subsequently modified in 1947.

According to The Hindu, "Pingali Venkayya was an authority in geology, agriculture and also an educationist who set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam. He, however, died in poverty in 1963 and was largely forgotten by the society and by his own party, the Congress." A postage stamp was issued to commemorate him in 2009 and in 2011 it was proposed that he be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna. The outcome of that proposal is not known.

02 August - Invasion of Kuwait in 1990

The invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 was a two-day operation conducted by Iraq against the neighboring State of Kuwait, which resulted in the seven-month-long Iraqi occupation of the country.This invasion and Iraq's subsequent refusal to withdraw from Kuwait by a deadline mandated by the United Nations led to military intervention by a United Nations-authorized coalition of forces led by the United States. These events came to be known as the first Gulf War and resulted in the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the Iraqis setting 600 Kuwaiti oil wells on fire during their retreat.

In early 1990 Iraq was accusing Kuwait of stealing Iraqi petroleum through slant drilling, although some Iraqi sources indicated Saddam Hussein's decision to attack Kuwait was made a few months before the actual invasion. Some feel there were several reasons for the Iraqi move, including Iraq's inability to pay the more than US$14 billion that it had borrowed to finance the Iran–Iraq War, and Kuwaiti high petroleum production levels which kept revenues down for Iraq.The invasion started on 2 August 1990, and within two days most of the Kuwait Armed Forces were either overrun by the Iraqi Republican Guard or fell back to neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Iraq set up a puppet government known as the "Republic of Kuwait" to rule over Kuwait and then annexed it outright, when Saddam Hussein announced a few days later that it was the 19th province of Iraq.

01 August - Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe born in 1920

Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe (1 August 1920 – 18 July 1969), popularly known as Annabhau Sathe, was a social reformer, communist folk poet, and writer from Maharashtra, India.Sathe was a Dalit born into the untouchable Mang community, and his upbringing and identity were central to his writing and political activism.Sathe was a Marxist-Ambedkarite mosaic, initially influenced by the communists but he later became an Ambedkarite.He is credited as a founding father of 'Dalit Literature'.

01 August - Francis Scott Key born in 1779

Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779 – January 11, 1843)was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who is best known for writing the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Key observed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814 during the War of 1812. He was inspired upon seeing the American flag still flying over the fort at dawn and wrote the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry"; it was published within a week with the suggested tune of the popular song "To Anacreon in Heaven". The song with Key's lyrics became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner" and slowly gained in popularity as an unofficial anthem, finally achieving official status more than a century later under President Herbert Hoover as the national anthem. The national motto "In God We Trust" derives from a line in "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Key was a lawyer in Maryland and Washington D.C. for four decades and worked on important cases, including the Burr conspiracy trial, and he argued numerous times before the Supreme Court. He was nominated for District Attorney for the District of Columbia by President Andrew Jackson, where he served from 1833 to 1841. Key was a devout Episcopalian.

Key owned slaves from 1800, during which time abolitionists ridiculed his words, claiming that America was more like the "Land of the Free and Home of the Oppressed".As District Attorney, he suppressed abolitionists and did not support an immediate end to slavery.He was also a leader of the American Colonization Society which sent freed slaves to Africa.He freed some of his slaves in the 1830s, paying one ex-slave as his farm foreman. He publicly criticized slavery and gave free legal representation to some slaves seeking freedom, but he also represented owners of runaway slaves.

01 August - "Lokmanya" Bal Gangadhar Tilak death in 1920

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (or Lokmanya Tilak) 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920, born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence activist. He was one third of the Lal Bal Pal triumvirate.Tilak was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities called him "The father of the Indian unrest." He was also conferred with the title of "Lokmanya", which means "accepted by the people (as their leader)".Mahatma Gandhi called him "The Maker of Modern India".

Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in Marathi: "Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!". He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders including Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

"Lokmanya" Bal Gangadhar Tilak passed away on 01 August 1920.

29 July - Eid al-Adha

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى) commemorates Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice everything for God, including his son, Ismael. God became impressed with Abraham's sincerity, and gave him a ram to sacrifice instead. For that reason, Muslims who can afford to do so also sacrifice an animal on any one of the three days of Eid al-Adha. A third of the meat is kept, a third is shared with family members, and a third is given away to needy people.

Eid al-Adha is a time of sacrifice for Muslims. It is the day after Arafah (9th of Dhul-Hijjah on the Islamic calendar). It begins on the 10th of the month and lasts for three days. This is the second main annual festival in Islam (the other being: Eidul Fitr).

#EidAlAdha

#EidMubarak

31 July - Munshi Premchand born in 1880

Munshi Premchand was born on July 31, 1880. He was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent, and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindustani writers of the early twentieth century.

Born Dhanpat Rai Srivastav, he began writing under the pen name "Nawab Rai", but subsequently switched to "Premchand", while he is also known as "Munshi Premchand", Munshi being an honorary prefix. A novel writer, story writer and dramatist, he has been referred to as the "Upanyas Samrat" ("Emperor among Novelists") by some Hindi writers. His works include more than a dozen novels, around 250 short stories, several essays and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi.

#MunshiPremchand

31 July - The Lunar Roving Vehicle first used in 1971

The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) is a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program (15, 16, and 17) during 1971 and 1972. They are popularly known as "Moon buggies", a play on the words "dune buggy".

LRVs were used for greater surface mobility during the Apollo J-class missions, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17. The rover was first used on 31 July 1971, during the Apollo 15 mission. Astronauts David Scott and James Irwin became the first to operate the rover on the Moon.

30 July - Vanuatu celebrates independence

Vanuatu officially the Republic of Vanuatu (French: République de Vanuatu; Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is a Pacific island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 540 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji.

Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies, and named it La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo.

In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through an Anglo–French condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was founded in 1980. Since independence, the country has become a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the Pacific Islands Forum.

On July 30, 1980, Vanuatu gained its long-fought independence under the leadership of Father Walter Lini and the Vanua'aku Pati.

Independence Day celebrations in Vanuatu begin in the afternoon and continue all night into the early hours of the next morning. They occur all over the entire archipelago and include such things as ceremonial flag-raising, military parades, traditional dancing, magic shows, drinking “kava,” face-painting, and dressing in traditional clothes.

29 July - International Tiger Day

Global Tiger Day, often called International Tiger Day, is an annual celebration to raise awareness for tiger conservation, held annually on 29 July.It was created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit.The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues.

Tigers are one of world’s most iconic species. Tigers are an ‘Umbrella Species’ as their conservation also conserves many other species in same area.
Thus with initiative of conserving India’s national animal, Project Tiger was launched in 1973. Due to planned efforts under Project Tiger, at present India has distinction of having maximum number of tigers in world. The 2014 country level tiger assessment had shown a 30% increase of tigers i.e. from 1706 in 2010, tiger population has increased to 2226 in 2014.

However, despite conservation efforts since 1970s, wild tiger populations showed a rapid decline therefore in 2010,during St. Petersburg Declaration, tiger range countries had resolved to double tiger numbers by 2022.

Observing World Tiger Day is significant because according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), currently there are only around 3,900 wild tigers in world and as per reports, since the beginning of 20th century around 95% of global tiger population has been lost to various activities like poaching, etc.