On this Day in History

At 5:17 p.m. on January 30, 1948, a 37-year-old Brahmin from Pune bowed before Mohandas Gandhi—one of history’s greatest voices of peace and non-violence—and proceeded to shoot him thrice with a Beretta M 1934 semi-automatic pistol. The Mahatma, who was on his way to address a prayer meeting at New Delhi’s Birla House, died in a few minutes. After the... Read More →

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister and one of its founding fathers, was born on November 14, 1889, at Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh) to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Nehru’s father, Motilal, was a prominent barrister and an important figure in the Indian National Congress, serving twice as its president. Nehru’s mother Swaruprani Thussu belonged to Kashmiri family based in Lahore.  ... Read More →

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh Empire, was born on November 13, 1780, to Maha Singh and Raj Kaur in Punjab’s Gujranwala area. He was initially named Buddh Singh but it is said that his father decided to rename him Ranjit (victor in war) as Maha Singh had just defeated the Chattar chieftain in a battle. During the... Read More →

Ornithologist and naturalist Salim Moizuddin Abdul Ali, known as the “birdman of India’, was born on November 12, 1896, to a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family in Bombay. Ali’s parents died before he turned four. He and his brothers and sisters were then brought up by an uncle and aunt. W.S. Millard, the then secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society... Read More →

A prominent leader of the independence movement, scholar and symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity, Abul Kalam Muhiyuddin Ahmed Azad, better known as Maulana Azad, was born on November 11, 1888, at Makkah in Saudi Arabia. His father Maulana Khairuddin was a Muslim from Bengal of Afghan origins. His mother was an Arab. The family, which had moved to Saudi Arabia after... Read More →

Known as a “Young Turk” for his outspokenness, Chandra Shekhar became India’s eight Prime Minister on November 10, 1990. A committed socialist, he had a reputation for being blunt and opposed to personality cults. Born in a Hindu Rajput agriculturist family on July 1, 1927 in Ibrahimpatti, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district, he secured a Master’s degree from... Read More →

Social reformer Dhondo Keshav Karve, whose pioneering contribution to women’s education in India has rarely been surpassed, died on November 9, 1962. Karve was born on April 18, 1858 at Sheravali in the Khed taluka of Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district in a Chitpavan Brahmin family. From an early age, education was an important aspect of his life. He once walked 110... Read More →

The face of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and one of the most senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Lal Krishna Advani was born on November 8, 1927, in Karachi, Sindh (now in Pakistan). With the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coming to power in 1998–2004, Advani served as Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister Atal... Read More →

Bipin Chandra Pal, a nationalist politician, renowned orator and writer, was born on November 7, 1858, in Poil, a village in Habiganj District (Sylhet), now a part of Bangladesh, to a wealthy Hindu Kayastha family. He was part of a group of leaders including Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Aurobindo Ghosh, collectively known as ‘militant nationalists’, representing the... Read More →

The shy 23-year-old Indian lawyer who landed in the South African port city of Durban in 1893 was unsure of what the future held for him, and there was little in his personality to suggest that he had the leadership skills to lead a mass movement. Yet, more than 20 years later, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India, he... Read More →