Internet on Independence Day (1995)

2020: COVID-19
• Date: March
• Location: Worldwide
A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the disease COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The virus spread to Europe and the United States in early 2020 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11. The outbreak reached virtually every nation on Earth, leading to countrywide lockdowns, massive layoffs, business closures, and school shutdowns. As of Aug. 26, the pandemic claimed more than 820,000 lives worldwide, including about 179,000 people in the U.S. COVID-19 has become the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu in 1918.

Neeraj Chopra’s javelin soars (2021)
On August 7, 2021, Neeraj Chopra found a small pocket in the air in the Tokyo sky and pierced it with his javelin. As the projectile soared, so did 101 years of India’s Olympics history with it. It kept travelling, with complete disregard for the burden of the past and the shackles of what is and isn’t possible. And when it landed, it had pushed the margins forever. The distance was 87.58m, and it would change Indian sport forever. It was the first medal by an Indian in track & field at the Olympic Games – not even the hallowed pantheon of Milkha Singh, PT Usha, and Anju Bobby George had managed one – and it was the second individual gold after Abhinav Bindra’s shooting triumph in 2008. Chopra was born in Haryana’s Khandra village in 1997. He was overweight as a child, and sport first became a fitness tool, then an escape, and eventually an obsession with excellence. This July, he followed up the Olympic gold with a silver at the World Championships – also a first for India. By one act of heroism at Tokyo, he has opened the doors to the global stage for Indian athletics, as evidenced by a flurry of medals even in his absence at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.