Keechaka Vadham (The Extermination of Keechaka) is an Indian silent film produced, directed, filmed and edited by R. Nataraja Mudaliar (pictured), and released in the late 1910s. No print of it is known to survive. The first Tamil film and the first film to be made in South India, it was shot in about five weeks at Mudaliar's production house, India Film Company. The screenplay by C. Rangavadivelu is based on an episode from the Virata Parva segment of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, focusing on Keechaka's attempts to woo Draupadi. The film stars Raju Mudaliar and Jeevarathnam as the central characters. Keechaka Vadham was commercially successful and received positive critical feedback. The film's success prompted the director to make a series of similar historical films that laid the foundation for the South Indian cinema industry. His works were an inspiration to other filmmakers, including Raghupathi Surya Prakasa and J. C. Daniel.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keechaka_Vadham

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1812:

French invasion of Russia: Following the Battle of Borodino seven days earlier, Napoleon and his Grande Armée captured Moscow, only to find the city deserted and burning (depicted). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_of_Moscow_%281812%29

1901:

Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States at age 42, the youngest person ever to do so, eight days after William McKinley was fatally wounded in Buffalo, New York. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

1954:

In a secret nuclear test, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40-kiloton atomic weapon just north of Totskoye village, exposing some 45,000 soldiers and 10,000 civilians to nuclear fallout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totskoye_nuclear_exercise

2019:

Drone attacks on major processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais forced Saudi Arabia to cut more than half of its oil production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abqaiq%E2%80%93Khurais_attack

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

epicene: 1. (linguistics) Of or relating to a class of Greek and Latin nouns that may refer to males or females but have a fixed grammatical gender (feminine, masculine, neuter, etc.). 2. (linguistics) Of or relating to nouns or pronouns in any language that have a single form for male and female referents. 3. (by extension) Suitable for use regardless of sex; unisex. 4. (biology and figuratively) Of indeterminate sex, whether asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex. 5. (by extension) Indeterminate; mixed. 6. (by extension, usually derogatory) Of a man: effeminate. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epicene

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us.   --Alexander von Humboldt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt