10 February - Kashi Vidyapith established

 

Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith is a public university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Established in 10 February 1921 as Kashi Vidyapith and later renamed, it is administered under the state legislature of the government of Uttar Pradesh. It got University status in 1974 as Deemed to be University and State University status in 2009 by The Uttar Pradesh State Universities (Amendment) Act, 2008 (act no. 6 of 2009). The university has more than 400+ affiliated colleges spread over six districts. It is one of the largest state universities in Uttar Pradesh, with hundreds of thousands of students, both rural and urban. It offers a range of professional and academic courses in arts, science, commerce, agriculture science, law, computing and management.

10 February - Teddy Day

 

Teddy Day is the fourth day of Valentine's Week. It falls on February 10. People gift their partner or crush a teddy bear on this day to express their love and fondness for them. Since Valentine's week is about celebrating the feeling of being in love with pomp and grandeur, gifting teddy bears also becomes a part of that gesture.

Teddy is special to humans as they are a part of one’s childhood, reminding us of the warmth and softness that once was a part of their life.

10 February - Ras Al Khaimah joined UAE in 1972

 

Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates.

Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) is the largest city and capital of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. It is the sixth-largest city in UAE after Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain and Ajman. The city is divided by a creek into two parts: old town in the west and Al Nakheel in the east

The name Ras Al Khaimah means "the headland of the tent".It is reported that the city gained its named after a tent was erected there to facilitate navigation.

The last of the Trucial States to join the newly independent United Arab Emirates, on 10 February 1972, Ras Al Khaimah, under the leadership of Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, joined the United Arab Emirates following the Iranian seizure of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs.

10 February - Boris Leonidovich Pasternak born 10 February 1890

 

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak(10 February 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, My Sister, Life, was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an important collection in the Russian language. Pasternak's translations of stage plays by Goethe, Schiller, Calderón de la Barca and Shakespeare remain very popular with Russian audiences.

Pasternak is the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War. Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and was first published there in 1957.Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 1989, Pasternak's son Yevgeny finally accepted the award on his father's behalf. Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.

09 February - USA celebrates National Pizza Day

 

National Pizza Day is a day to celebrate pizza, which is a baked flatbread topped with tomato sauce and cheese and baked in an oven. Of course, many toppings and sauces can be added, ranging from meats to vegetables or seafood. Pizza was invented in Naples, Italy in the 10th century.

09 February - Chocolate Day

 

La Poste France has issued a miniature sheet commemorating 400 years of Chocolate's arrival in Europe in 1609, La Poste has created a block of chocolate-scented stamps.  

The block of 10 stamps (€0.56 each, for €5.60) is designed to look like a bar of chocolate and even smells like one. The stamps depict scenes from the history and manufacture of chocolate. 

The ink used on the stamps contains microcapsules which provide a chocolate scent that will reportedly last up to two years.

 Issue date 25 May 2009

Chocolate Dayis celebrated as to do away with the bitter and sour feelings in relationships. On this day, people exchange chocolates with their crushes or partners or relatives and pamper them by gifting them their favorite collection of chocolates or handmade candies.

08 February - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev birth anniversary

 

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (08 February 1834 – 02 February 1907) was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered.

08 February - Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi death anniversary

 

Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi( 30 December 1887 – 08 February 1971), popularly known by his pen name Ghanshyam Vyas, was an Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist from Gujarat state. A lawyer by profession, he later turned to author and politician. He is a well-known name in Gujarati literature. He founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, an educational trust, in 1938.

Munshi wrote his works in three languages namely Gujarati, English and Hindi. Before independence of India, Munshi was part of Indian National Congress and after independence, he joined Swatantra Party. Munshi held several important posts like member of Constituent Assembly of India, minister of agriculture and food of India, and governor of Uttar Pradesh. In his later life, he was one of the founding members of Vishva Hindu Parishad.

08 February - Jagjit Singh - Ghazal King India birth anniversary

 

Jagjit Singh born Jagmohan Singh Dhiman (8 February 1941 – 10 October 2011) was an Indian composer, singer and musician. He composed and sang in numerous languages and is credited for the revival and popularity of ghazal, an Indian classical art form, by choosing poetry that was relevant to the masses and composing them in a way that laid more emphasis on the meaning of words and melody evoked by them. In terms of Indian classical music, his style of composing and gayaki (singing) is considered as Bol-pradhan, one that lays emphasis on words. He highlighted this in his music for films such as Prem Geet (1981), Arth (1982), and Saath Saath (1982), and TV serials Mirza Ghalib (1988) and Kahkashan (1991). Singh is considered to be the most successful ghazal singer and composer of all time in terms of critical acclaim and commercial success. With a career spanning five decades and many albums, the range and breadth of his work has been regarded as genre-defining.
Singh was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the government of India in 2003 and in February 2014, the government released a set of two postal stamps in his honor.

08 February - Leiden University established in 1575

 

Leiden University is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. It was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 and established on 08 Feb 1575  by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Leiden for its defense against Spanish attacks during the Eighty Years' War. As the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands, it enjoys a solid reputation across Europe and the world.

Known for its historic foundations and emphasis on the social sciences, the university came into particular prominence during the Dutch Golden Age, when scholars from around Europe were attracted to the Dutch Republic due to its climate of intellectual tolerance and Leiden's international reputation. During this time, Leiden became the home to individuals such as René Descartes, Rembrandt, Christiaan Huygens, Hugo Grotius, Baruch Spinoza and Baron d'Holbach.

The university has seven academic faculties and over fifty subject departments while housing more than 40 national and international research institutes. Its historical primary campus consists of buildings scattered across the college town of Leiden, while a second campus located in The Hague houses a liberal arts college (Leiden University College The Hague) and several of its faculties. It is a member of the Coimbra Group, the Europaeum and a founding member of the League of European Research Universities.

Leiden University consistently ranks among the best universities in the world by prominent international ranking tables, being placed in the top 50 worldwide in thirteen fields of study in the 2020 QS World University Rankings: classics & ancient history, politics, archaeology, anthropology, history, pharmacology, law, public policy, public administration, religious studies, arts & humanities, linguistics, modern languages and sociology.In the 2022 ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects it is ranked 3rd in the world in Public Administration, 12th in Medical Technology, 22nd in Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, 40th in Political Sciences and 49th in Library & Information Science.

The university has produced twenty-six Spinoza Prize Laureates and sixteen Nobel Laureates, including Enrico Fermi and Albert Einstein. It is closely associated with the Dutch royal family, with Queen Juliana, Queen Beatrix and King Willem-Alexander being alumni. Ten Prime Ministers of the Netherlands are also alumni, including incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Internationally, Leiden University is associated with several leaders, including a President of the United States, two NATO Secretaries-General, a President of the International Court of Justice and a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.