Karthigai Masapravesam 2024

November 16 is the 320th day of the year (321st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 45 days remain until the end of the year.

 

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus - was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome this day in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius's mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus's two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus's successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier. 

Gustavus Adolphus (1594 – 1632), was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, and is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power.  During his reign, Sweden became one of the primary military forces in Europe during the Thirty Years' War, helping to determine the political and religious balance of power in Europe. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great   by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634.  

The Battle of Lützen, fought on this day in  1632,  is considered one of the most important battles of the Thirty Years' War. Led by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, an Allied army primarily composed of troops from Sweden, Saxony, and Hesse-Kassel, narrowly defeated an Imperial force under Albrecht von Wallenstein. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, with Gustavus himself among the dead. 

The Holy Child of La Guardia is a folk saint in Spanish Roman Catholicism and the subject of a medieval blood libel in the town of La Guardia in the central Spanish province of Toledo (Castile–La Mancha). On this day in 1491 an auto-da-fé was held outside of Ávila that ended in the public execution of several Jews and conversos. The suspects had confessed under torture to murdering a child. Among the executed were Benito García, the converso who initially confessed to the murder.  However, no body was ever found and there is no evidence that a child disappeared or was killed; because of contradictory confessions, the court had trouble coherently depicting how events possibly took place.  The child's very existence is also disputed. 

The Estonian Sovereignty Declaration, [Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Estonian SSR (Deklaratsioon Eesti NSV suveräänsusest)] , was issued on this day in 1988 during the Singing Revolution in then Soviet-occupied Estonia. The declaration asserted Estonia's sovereignty and the supremacy of the Estonian laws over the laws of the Soviet Union.  Estonia's newly elected parliament also laid claim to all natural resources: land, inland waters, forests, mineral deposits and to the means of industrial production, agriculture, construction, state banks, transportation, municipal services, etc. within Estonia's borders. 

Icelandic Language Day is a festival celebrated on 16 November each year in Iceland to celebrate the Icelandic language. This date was chosen to coincide with the birthday of the Icelandic poet Jónas Hallgrímsson. 

The International Day for Tolerance is an annual observance day declared by UNESCO in 1995 to generate public awareness of the dangers of intolerance. It is observed on 16 November. Every year various conferences and festivals are organized in the occasion of International Day for Tolerance. Among them, "Universal Tolerance Cartoon Festival" in Drammen, Norway which organized an International Cartoon Festival in 2013. 

Sir John Ambrose Fleming FRS [1849-1945]   was an English electrical engineer and physicist who invented the first thermionic valve or vacuum tube, designed the radio transmitter with which the first transatlantic radio transmission was made, and also established the right-hand rule used in physics.  In mathematics and physics, the right-hand rule is a convention and a mnemonic, utilized to define the orientation of axes in three-dimensional space and to determine the direction of the cross product of two vectors, as well as to establish the direction of the force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field. In 1904, working for the Marconi company to improve transatlantic radio reception, Fleming invented the first thermionic vacuum tube, the two-electrode diode, which he called the oscillation valve, for which he received a patent on this day in 1904. It became known as the Fleming valve. The Supreme Court of the United States later invalidated the patent because of an improper disclaimer and, additionally, maintained the technology in the patent was known art when filed.  This invention of the vacuum tube is often considered to have been the beginning of electronics.  Fleming's diode was used in radio receivers and radars for many decades afterwards, until it was superseded by solid state electronic technology more than 50 years later. 

Nothing of the above may greatly enthuse us – today 16th Nov. 2024 (Sat) heralds the birth of Karthigai month – the month whence we will celebrate Thirukarthigai deepam and sarrumurai vaibhavams of Thirumangai Mannan & Thiruppanazhwar.

 

Today at Thiruvallikkeni divyadesam, Sri Parthasarathi perumal had siriya mada veethi purappadu on the occasion of Karthigai masapirappu. Here are some photos of the purappadu.

 
adiyen Srinivasa dhasan
Mamandur Veeravalli Srinivasan Sampathkumar
16^th Nov 2024. (Karthigai 1, 2024)