Denmark, Metallica, & Indira Gandhi | #208
+ the story of Nitish Kumar (not that one) >>
Hello friends
It was a week of upsets. USA defeated Pakistan at the ongoing T20 World Cup. The I.N.D.I.A alliance defied expectations to ensure that the coalition governments are back in vogue (Common Minimum Programme - you remember!). And a plucky twitter account called iwtkquiz has reached 50,000 followers!
This week’s newsletter, we hype up the underdog and feature some interesting upsets from the past. Buckle up!
Things we learnt this week 🤓
The European football league season may be over, but the best players cannot take their summer vacations just yet. Back in 1992, members of the Danish national side went on their summer vacations as they had not qualified for the Euros. With less than a fortnight to go before the tournament, they were asked to take the place of Yugoslavia, who were banned from the tournament on account of the war in their country. That Yugoslavian team had dominated the qualifiers and were expected to do really well in the tournament. The Danish side were under-prepared, albeit with a decent roster of players including the legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel. The Danes started with a 0-0 draw against England and lost 1-0 to Sweden. In a must win game against favorites France, they displayed their best football to win 2-1. In the semifinals, Denmark overcame the Dutch challenge thanks to Schmeichel’s heroics in the penalty shootout. In the final, the underdog Danes beat the overwhelming favorites and reigning world champions Germany 2-0 to take home the trophy that none of them had even planned to participate in. The Danes were called the Big Mac team after the team was spotted enjoying their meals at McDonalds after their training sessions. They certainly super-sized their team’s achievements then.
The Grammy awards recognized heavy metal music artists for the first time in 1989. Metallica, the OG heavy metal superstars, were widely expected to win the Grammy for the best hard rock/Heavy metal performance for their album And Justice for All, but surprise surprise, the prog folk leanings of Jethro Tull won for their album Crest of a Knave. The award was widely criticised and the recording academy, who handle the Grammy’s, decided to divide the category into Best Hard Rock performance and Best Metal performance. Metallica duly won the Best Metal performance in 1990 and thanked Jethro Tull for not releasing an album that year. Jethro Tull also released an ad indicating that the Flute is a Heavy Metal instrument. You may be headbanging at this one, but it might be only for a flute.
In 1975 the Allahabad High Court found her guilty of electoral malpractice and declared her election from Rae Bareli from the previous election invalid. Less than two weeks later, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency which led to extreme excesses. After the Emergency was revoked, elections were held in 1977. Despite the Emergency, Congress got 194 seats and many expected Indira Gandhi to win her traditional seat in Rae Bareli. But freedom fighter Raj Narain had other ideas. He delivered a stunning upset, defeating her by a significant margin. The Janata Party, which was a party that had absorbed other political parties emerged victorious and Morarji Desai became Prime Minister. But infighting within the Janata Party meant that the government collapsed and in 1980, Indira Gandhi, fighting from Medak and Rae Bareli won both her seats. She eventually resigned from Rae Bareli.
From IWTK, with love 💌
Nitish Kumar might be looking to change sides. But there is a Nitish Kumar who has already done it. Know more.
Since election results are in vogue, do you know the answer to this question on Kissa Kursi Ka?
Only In India 🇮🇳
Maybe the next step would be for Bajaj Finance to offer loans and spam you as well.
❤️ IWTK