Today in history @ 18 Jan

Birth anniversaries of

a. Dolby Ray (b. 1933), inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR and founder of Dolby Laboratories.

b. Oliver Hardy (b. 1892) of the famous "Laurel and Hardy" fame.

c. A A Milne (b. 1882), creator of Winnie-The-Pooh

Death anniversaries of

a. Rudyard Kipling (d. 1936) famous for the books Jungle Book, Kim and The Man who would be King. He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. He was born in Bombay and is buried at the "Poets Corner" in Westminister Abbey. I first came to know him from the powerful poem "If" which I consider as one of the finest poems I have ever come across.

b. Harivansh Rai Bacchan (d. 2003) ; noted Indian poet of the Nayi Kavita literary movement (romantic upsurge) of early 20th century Hindi literature. He was born Harivansh Rai Srivastava; was called bachchan (meaning Kid) at home. From 1941 to 1952 he taught in the English Department at the Allahabad University and after that he spent the next two years at St Catharine's College, Cambridge University doing his doctoral thesis on W.B. Yeats. It was then, that he used 'Bachchan' as his last name instead of Srivastava. Harivanshrai's thesis got him his PhD at Cambridge. He is the second Indian to get his doctorate in English literature from Cambridge. After returning to India he again took to teaching and also served at All India Radio, Allahabad.
In 1955, he shifted to Delhi to join the External Affairs Ministry as an officer on Special duty and during the period of 10 years that he served he was also associated with the evolution of Hindi as the official language. He also enriched Hindi through his translations of major global writings; besides Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, he will also be remembered for his Hindi translations of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Othello and also the Bhagvad Gita. However, in Nov 1984 he wrote his last poem 'Ek November 1984' on Indira Gandhi's assassination.
Bachchan's work has been used in movies and music multiple times. Few notable are:
"Rang Barse", the famous Holi song from Hindi movie Silsila starring his son
Couplets of his work "Agneepath" are used throughout in the movie Agneepath (1990 film) again starring Amitabh Bachchan and later in the remake Agneepath (2012 film)
Couplets of "Koshish karne waalon ki kabhi.." are used in the movie Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara
Manna Dey sang the musical version of Madhushala
'Koi Gata Main So Jata', a beautiful song from the movie Alaap sung by K. J. Yesudas starring his son Amitabh Bachchan

c. Kundan Lal Saigal (d. 1947). Before he became famous for his singing and acting, he worked as a railway timekeeper, a salesman for Remmingtin Typrwriters and as a hotel manager. Many male singers who started their career in 1940s and 1950s started their journey by immitating him.