In 2016, India will commemorate the 50th anniversary of IR8, a specially engineered rice variety that spared much of Asia from starvation.
India marked the 50th anniversary of IR8 on November 21, 2016. IR8 is a high-yielding semi-dwarf rice variety developed in the early 1960s by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It was the work of Peter Jennings (not to be confused with the American journalist) and Henry Beachell. IR8 was first introduced in the Philippines and India in November 1966. Promoters such as the IRRI and farmer benefactors of IR8 have dubbed it "miracle rice," and it has been credited with preventing famine.
Related On This Day
Radium is discovered by scientists Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898.
Elton John, a British pop pianist and singer, marries Canadian filmmaker David Furnish in 2014.
Kunal Nayyar, the Indian actor from "The Big Bang Theory," married Miss India 2006 winner Neha Kapur in New Delhi, India in 2011.
The first manned Moon mission, Apollo 8, was launched in 1968, with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders aboard.
Captain James Cook, a British explorer, marries Elizabeth Batts in 1762.
Samuel Beckett, an Irish-French writer, died in 1989 at the age of 83.
Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician who discovered number theory, was born in Erode, British India, in 1887.
Madonna marries film director Guy Ritchie at Skibo Castle in Scotland in 2000.
Samuel L. Jackson, an American actor, was born in Washington, D.C. in 1948.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, an American novelist, dies of a heart attack at the age of 44 in 1940.
Emmanuel Macron, French politician and President of France, was born in Amiens, France, in 1977.
Autar Singh Paintal, an Indian medical scientist, died in 2004 at the age of 79.
Jimmy Fallon, a former "Saturday Night Live" cast member and "Tonight Show" host, married Hollywood producer Nancy Juvonen on Necker Island in the Caribbean in 2007.
Edmund Hillary marries June Mulgrew in 1989.
On December 22, 1998, Zinedine Zidane received the 1998 Ballon d'Or
Psy's "Gangnam Style" becomes the first YouTube video to exceed one billion views in 2012.
Guru Gobind Singh, the Tenth Guru of Sikhism, the creator and General of Khalsa, a social reformist and poet, was born in Patna Sahib, India, in 1666.
Tsunami strikes Indonesia's Sunda Strait in 2018, killing over 400 people as a portion of the Anak Krakatoa volcano collapses into the sea.
The first freight train operates in Roorkee, India, in 1851.