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20 August in the pages of history: Yoga Guru Iyengar went into eternal sleep | News India

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Bellur Krishnamachari Sundararaja Iyengar, the founder of 'Iyengar Yoga', died on 20 August 2014 in Pune at the age of 96. He established Iyengar Yoga and made it famous all over the world. In 2002, the Government of India awarded him Padma Bhushan in the field of literature and education and in 2014, he was awarded Padma Vibhushan. He was the most prominent personality who did remarkable work in the field of yoga education in Europe.

Born on 14 December 1918 in a poor family in Vellore, Iyengar was the world's longest-living yoga guru. Yoga Guru Iyengar's journey to becoming a yoga guru began when he was 16 years old and he used to practice difficult yoga even at the age of 90. In the late 1950s, he taught Shirshasana to the Queen Mother of Belgium, Queen Elizabeth, when he was over eighty. Even at the age of 90, Iyengar used to practice asanas for 3 hours a day and pranayama every hour. He could do more than 200 classical yoga asanas and 14 types of pranayama. He had designed special yoga postures for the handicapped.

He went to 78 countries and taught yoga to the people there. 20 thousand certified yoga teachers across the world consider him their guru. 200 Iyengar Yoga institutes are still operating across the world. He also wrote many books including 'Light of Yoga', 'Light of Pranayama', Light on Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.

Other important events:

1828 – The first session of Raja Ram Mohan Roy's Brahmo Samaj was held in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

1897 – Ronald Ross identified the Anopheles mosquito as the cause of malaria while working at the Presidency General Hospital in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

1921 – Moplah rebellion began in the Malabar region of Kerala.

1949 – The Constitution was adopted in the European country Hungary.

1955 – Hundreds killed in anti-French riots in Morocco and Algeria.

1972 – The then Soviet Russia conducted an underground nuclear test.

1979 – Then Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh resigned within 23 days of taking oath as Prime Minister.

1994 – The United States announced the end of the 28-year-old policy of giving shelter to Cuban refugees.

1998 – Leander Paes defeated Pete Sampras to win the Pilot Pen International tennis tournament.

1991 – Northern European country Estonia announced its separation from the then Soviet Russian Union.

2001 – Indian champion Viswanathan Anand won the Villarodes Chess Championship in Spain by defeating Alexei Shirov of Spain.

2002 – Palestinian guerilla leader Abu Nidal is found dead.

2008 – Famous Indian classical musician Aruna Sai Ram was honoured with a special honour in America.

2013 – Nine militants killed in Russian police action in North Caucasus.

2012 – 20 people died in riots in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

Birth

1986 – Tania Sachdev – Indian female chess player.

1915 – D. Devaraj Urs – 8th Chief Minister of Karnataka.

1917 – Trilochan Shastri- Famous poet of progressive poetry stream.

1919 – B.J. Dewan – Acting Governor of Andhra Pradesh.

1944 – Rajiv Gandhi – was the ninth Prime Minister of India.

1944 – Kumari Naaz – was a Hindi film actress.

1946 – N.R. Narayana Murthy- Founder of Infosys Company.

1940 – Rajendra Kumar Pachauri – Internationally renowned environmentalist.

1799 – James Prinsep – Brahmi script linguist and first Englishman to read Ashoka's inscriptions.

demise

2014 – B. K. S. Iyengar – was a famous Indian yoga guru.

2011 – Ram Sharan Sharma – Famous historian and educationist of India.

1991 – Gopinath Mohanty – Famous writer of Odia language.