The Shishir Kumar Website

Jul 17, 2011

Disneyland, Walt Disney’s metropolis of nostalgia, fantasy, and futurism, opens on July 17, 1955. The $17 million theme park was built on 160 acres of former orange groves in Anaheim, California, and soon brought in staggering profits. Today, Disneyland hosts more than 14 million visitors a year, who spend close to $3 billion. Walt Disney, born in Chicago...

Jun 16, 2011

On this day in 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters...

Jun 7, 2011

On this day in 1913, Hudson Stuck, an Alaskan missionary, leads the first successful ascent of Mt. McKinley, the highest point on the American continent at 20,320 feet. Stuck, an accomplished amateur mountaineer, was born in London in 1863. After moving to the United States, in 1905 he became archdeacon of the Episcopal Church in Yukon, Alaska, where he was an...

Apr 25, 2011

On this day in 1983, the Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, inviting her to visit his country. Andropov’s letter came in response to a note Smith had sent him in December 1982, asking if the Soviets were planning to start a nuclear war. At the time, the...

Apr 5, 2011

  Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indian confederacy, marries English tobacco planter John Rolfe in Jamestown, Virginia. The marriage ensured peace between the Jamestown settlers and the Powhatan Indians for several years. In May 1607, about 100 English colonists settled along the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown, the first...

Mar 10, 2011

  Ever wished real life could be more like a Pixar movie? It was for a little while on Saturday, as a team of awesomizers managed to successfully lift a house into the air, “Up” style, using a cluster of brightly colored balloons.  The adorable 2,000-pound, 16×16-foot yellow house took to the skies with the aid of 300 weather balloons...

Feb 24, 2011

  Age is no limit for Narayan Krishna Mahajan.  The ninety-one-year old set a new high inspiration for people of all age groups by climbing a mountain 3,500 above sea level without any help or assistance, but for a walking stick as an occasional aid. He tied himself to ropes, and rappelled from the top of the peak to the peak of another hill in...

Feb 18, 2011

On this day in 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous–and famously controversial–novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Though Twain saw Huck’s story as a kind of...

Feb 4, 2011

Its always said that the Best time to experience the tranquility of Nandi Hills is sometime between July & September. Thereof logically thinking, December-January-February will be the worst of the months to visit this place. Having been through the Best & Worst of the months, I can conclude there is nothing such thing as Best & Worst about the Mother...