Today’s History: The crowd had reached 6 hours ago to watch the first show of the first talking film, the police used sticks to control

91 years ago today, the first speech of Indian cinema, that is, the talking film Alam Ara was released. The first show of this film was shown on 14 March 1931 at the Majestic Cinema in Mumbai. The show was supposed to start at 3 am, but people had gathered outside the cinema hall only at 9 am. Seeing the crowd becoming uncontrollable, the police had to be called, there was also a lathi charge. The craze of this film was that people bought its tickets in black for 50-50 rupees. Which used to be a huge amount in those days.

The film was a love story of a prince and a Banjaran girl, based on a Parsi play by Joseph David. Directed by Ardeshir Irani, the film starred Master Vitthal, Zubeida, Jillow, Sushila and Prithviraj Kapoor.

There were 7 songs in this film. De De Khuda Ke Naam Pe from this film is considered to be the first song of Indian cinema, which was sung by Wazir Mohammad Khan.

This was the period when it was not considered good for women to work in films. That’s why actress Zubaida had to face a lot of difficulties initially. Zubeida’s two sisters Sultana and Shahzadi were also actresses. Zubeida was the daughter of Siddi Ibrahim, the Nawab of Gujarat. Zubeida worked in popular films like Devdas (1937) and Meri Jaan.

Now there is not a single print of this film left.

The 124-minute film was produced by a production company named Imperial Movietone. Unfortunately not a single print of this film has survived. If you want to see this movie now, then you can not watch it.

March 14 is also remembered for these events in the country and the world:

2018: Stephen Hawking, scientist working on black holes and author of the book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, has died. Hawking was a professor of theoretical physics and mathematics at Cambridge University. Despite his physical disability, he gave many important theories in the field of cosmology.

2013: Xi Jinping became the President of China. Prior to this, Jinping was also the Vice President of China for five years.

2004: Vladimir Putin became the President of Russia for the second time in a row. In 1999, he replaced the then President Boris Yeltsin.

1998: Sonia Gandhi became the President of the Indian National Congress. She held this post for 19 consecutive years till 16 December 2017.

1987: The bloodless military revolution in Fiji was followed by a government coup.

1965: Film actor Aamir Khan was born. Aamir first appeared as a child artist in the 1973 film Yaadon Ki Baaraat. His first film was Holi in 1984 after eleven years. He got recognition in the industry from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.

1963: Freedom fighter, former Chief Minister of Rajasthan and Congress leader Jaynarayan Vyas passed away.

1939: Slovakia declared independence.

1883: Death of German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist Karl Marx.

1879: Albert Einstein, the great scientist who told the theory of relativity and the relation of mass and energy (E = mc2), was born.