Indian History

  1486   - Birth of  Chaitanya Mahaprabhu    on   18th February in 1486 . Considered to be one the greatest saints of Bhakti Movement, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born on 18th February in 1486 in   Navadwip   (Nadia) in a Brahmin family in West Bengal. Nimai and Gauranga were his other names.  Chaitanya Mahaprabhu gave great impetus to Vaishnavism in Bengal. This greatest religious reformer  laid the foundation of the Gaudiya sect of Vaishnavs. He was an exponent of a new style of Bhajan singing.  1905 - Foundation of the  Indian Home Rule Society  (IHRS) in  1905 . The Indian Home Rule Society (IHRS) was an Indian organisation founded on  18 February  in London in 1905 that sought to promote the cause of self-rule in British India. It was founded by Indian revolutionary leader  Shyamji Krishna Varma .  

  1792-  Birth of  Budhu Bhagat  on  17 February,   1792  in Jharkhand .      Budhu Bhagat was the leader of  Kol  rebellion and  Larka  rebellion in 1831—32 in Chhotanagpur. Born on  17 February 1792  into an Oraon farmer family, Budhu Bhagat had employed tactic of guerrilla warfare against the British. His resistance to the British forces ended when he was killed on  13 February 1832  by them . 

1869  - Death of Mirza Ghalib on 15 February 1869. He was a famous Urdu poet during the Mughal period. Ghalib was buried near the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya in Hazrat Nizamuddin locality in Delhi Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Urdu language, Mirza Ghalib was patronized by the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (Zafar ascended the Mughal throne in 1837). He was born in Agra on 27 December 1797.  Ghalib was also well versed in Persian.  1948 - Death of famous Hindi poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan on 15 February 1948. One of her most popular poems is Jhansi Ki Rani. She was born on 16 August 1904. 

1483 - Birth of Mughal Emperor Babur on   14 February 1483 .  Zahirudding Muhammad Babur ,  better known simply today as  Babur , who defeated   Ibrahim Lodi   of the Lodi Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate at the   first battle of Panipat   on the 21st April,  1526 , founded the Mughal empire in India.  1556  -  Akbar ascended the Mughal throne at the age of 13 years and 4 months on February 14, 1556. The  brick coronation platform of  Akbar , the known as Takht-i-Akbari, is located at  Kalanaur in  the Gurdaspur district in  Punjab. The brick platform is the place where Akbar’s coronation took place in 1556.  1658  - At the Battle of Bahadurpur near Benares, Shuja, son of  the fifth Mughal emperor  Shah Jahan, was defeated by Sulaiman Shikoh, on 14 February in 1658. Sulaiman Shikoh was the son of Dara Sikoh, eldest son of Shah Jahan.  The Battle of Bahadurpur was part of...

  1742  - Birth of Nana Phadnavis (also spelt as Nana Fadnavis) on 12th February in 1742. Nana Fadnavis was a brilliant Maratha minister and statesman during the Peshwa administration in Pune. He is often referred to as "the Maratha Machiavelli". 1824 - Birth of Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, on 12 February 1824. Arya Samaj was founded in 1875. 

1750 - Birth of Tilka Majhi on 11th February  in 1750 . Tilka Majhi was a tribal leader and revolutionary who laid down his life in 1785 some 72 years before the First War of Independence in 1857. His place of birth is Tilakpur in Sultanganj in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar.  He had killed Augustus Cleveland , a British East India Company administrator in Bengal and Collector of Bhagalpur, who was known for his arrogance and hatred towards Indians.  Tilka Majhi was executed by the British on January 13, 1785.  The site where he was hanged from a banyan tree is known as Tilka Manjhi Chowk. The Bhagalpur University is also named after this heroic figure.  1942 - Death of Jamnalal Bajaj on 11th February, 1942. Jamnalal Bajaj was a freedom fighter, businessman, social reformer and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.

  1757  -  Treaty of Alinaga r was signed on  9 February 1757  between Robert Clive of the British East India Company  and  Siraj ud-Daulah , the Nawab of Bengal,  Alinagar  was the short-lived name given to Calcutta by the Nawab after it was captured by him in June 1756. Under the terms of the treaty, Calcutta was restored to the East India Company. 

1872 - Death of   Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo , the   Viceroy of India  (1869-72), on 8 February 1872. Lord Mayo, after whom   Mayo College   in Ajmer is named, was assassinated by Sher Ali Afridi at Port Blair. Afridi was hanged on March 11, 1872.  1995  - Death of  Kalpana Datta  on 8 February 1995 (27 July 1913 – 8 February 1995), Also known as Kalpana Joshi, Kalpana Datta was a woman revolutionary from Bengal. She was a member of the Chittagong Republican Army, formed by Surya Sen ( also known as “Masterda”). Chittagong Republican Army carried out the Chittagong armoury raid in 1930.

1942 - Death of revolutionary leader   Sachindra Nath Sanyal   who was born on 3rd June 1893 in Benares, then in North-Western Provinces. He died on 7th February 1942.  Sachindra Nath Sanyal / Image Credit-  Wikimedia Commons Jailed for his involvement in the  Kakori  conspiracy, Sanyal was the co-founder of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which after 1928 became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association).  He had written a book titled  Bandi Jeevan   (A Life of Captivity).

1931 - Death of Pt.  Motilal Nehru  (6 May 1861 –  6 February 1931 ), founder of Swaraj Party or the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party which was formed on 1st January, 1923. Motilal Nehru was the father of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister.  

2008  - Death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on  5 February 2008 . A self-styled Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the creator of  Transcendental Meditation  (TM), a form of silent meditation. 

1916   - Banaras Hindu University was founded on February 4th, 1916 by  Indian scholar, educational reformer, and political activist   Madan Mohan Malaviya.  1922  -The  Chauri Chaura  Incident took place on 4 February 1922 at Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in British India. On that day, a police station in the small town of Chauri Chaura was set on fire that killed 22 policemen, leading to Gandhi suspending his non-cooperation movement.  1948 - RSS was banned  on  4 February, 1948  following the assassination of Gandhi on 30th January, 1948.  1974  – Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian physicist and mathematician, passed away on  4th February, 1974   in Kolkata.

1509-  The Battle of Diu was fought on  3 February 1509  between the  Portuguese  and the combined forces of the  Sultan of Gujarat, the Zamorin of Calicut, the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt  with support from the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. The Portuguese emerged victorious.  1816 - Birth of Ram Singh , one of the famous leaders of the Kuka movement, on 3rd February, 1816.  Initially started as a religious movement with a view to reforming the Sikh religion by purging it of the degenerate features, Kuka movement, founded in 1840 in the Western Punjab, turned into a political struggle against the British. The founder of Kuka movement was Bhagat Jawahar Mal.   The Kuka Revolt also came to be known as Namdhari Movement.  Ram Singh gave a call to his followers for boycott of British goods, government schools and government posts. Known to his followers as  Satguru , he was deported by the British to Burma where he...

  1835  - On 2 February 1835, British historian, politician and colonial administrator Thomas Babington Macaulay presented his ‘Minute on Indian Education’ that underscored the need to impart English education to native Indians.  1887 - Birth of Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the first Health Minister of India in independent India, on 2nd  February. A member of India's Constituent Assembly that was responsible for the framing the Constitution of India, she played an important role in the Indian freedom struggle and was imprisoned by the British on several occasions.  

1681   - Maratha ruler Sambhaji, son of Shivaji, attacks and sacks Burhanpur, then under Mughal dominion, from 31 January to 2 February in 1681.  1689 -  Sambhaji was captured in  Samgamneshwar   by the Mughals on 1st February in 1689 and was executed by Aurangzeb on 11 March. 

1561 - Death of Bairam Khan, the preceptor to Mughal emperor Akbar and Mughal military commander, on 31st January 1561 on his way to Mecca. Bairam Khan was relieved of his post and was ordered by Akbar to go to Mecca.   Bairam Khan was instrumental in establishing the Mughal rule after Humayun's exile from India during the reign of Sur rulers.   

Mahendravarman I Mattavilas-prahasana (the Sport of Drunkards ) is a Sanskrit one-act play which comes lauded as a play to have been enacted for more than 1,300 years.  Mattavilasa-prahasana was written by Mahendravarman I  (590– 630CE) of the Pallava dynasty of south India, according to the Mamandur Cave temple inscription in Tamil Nadu. Mahendravarman I, also known as Mahendravikramavarman, was a contemporary of Harshavardhan of Kanauj . The Pallava ruler is credited with the introduction of the cave style of architecture. He is known for assuming the significant title of Vichitrachitta , “curious minded.”  Mahendravarman I was also the author of the play Bhagavad-Ajjuka Prahasana , or ‘The Farce of the Pious Courtesan.'  One of the masterpieces of Sanskrit literature, Mattavilasa prahasana is full of rollicking satire. Set in the Pallava capital of Kanchipuram , this little farce tells the story of a drunken Shaivite (follower of Shaivism, the cult of the god S...

  1948  - Death of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 January, 1930. Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on 30 January, 1948. 

1780   - On   29 January 1780 , India's and Asia's first printed newspaper ' Hicky's Bengal Gazette ' began its publication. Started by an Irishman named   James Augustus Hicky , Hicky's Bengal Gazette was a weekly English newspaper which ran for two years from 1780 to 1782. It was published from Kolkata. 1791 -  Lord Cornwallis  had  assumed command of the British troops on 29th January, 1791 during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. 

                          Clive meeting Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, (By Francis Hayman) Ghaseti Begum, originally named Mehar un-Nisa, was the eldest daughter of Alivardi Khan, the Nawab of Bengal. She was married to Nawazish Muhammad Khan. Ghaseti Begum went all out to conspire against her nephew Siraj-ud-Daula who was the last independent Nawab of Bengal. Siraj-ud-Daula was defeated by the British under Lord Clive in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and was killed on the orders of Miran, the son of Mir Jafar who was now made the Nawab of Bengal by the British.   Ghaseti  Begum was called the Begum of Motijheel  due to her residence at the bend of this reservoir in Murshidabad. Motijheel or Pearl Lake is an oxbow lake in Murshidabad. The lake was created by her husband Nawazish Muhammad Khan. Nawazish Muhammad Khan died of grief when his adopted son Ekram-ud-Daulah succumbed to smallpox at a yo...