NY Regents 10.7: Decolonization and Nationalism

On 30 December 1906, the All-India Muslim League was founded at a gathering held at the Shahbag estate in Dacca (now Dhaka), then the capital of the newly created Eastern Bengal and Assam province…

This is Wuhan, China, sitting on the Yangtze River roughly in the geographic center of the country, midway between the Tibetan Plateau to the west and the Pacific coast to the east. In 1911–1912, an…

On 29 December 1916, the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League signed the Lucknow Pact at the joint session of both organisations held in Lucknow, a major city on the Gomti river…

On 4 February 1916, Banaras Hindu University — one of the largest residential universities in Asia — was founded in the city of Varanasi (also called Banaras or Kashi) on the west bank of the Ganges…

The event took place in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, situated on the River Thames in southeastern England — on the large island off northwestern Europe's Atlantic coast, separated from…

In April 1917, Mohandas Gandhi arrived at Motihari in the Champaran district of what is now Bihar, India, to investigate the grievances of indigo farmers forced to grow the crop under exploitative…

On 18 March 1919, the Rowlatt Act — officially the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act — was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council sitting in New Delhi on the Yamuna plain in what is now…

On 13 April 1919, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to open fire on a large, unarmed crowd gathered at Jallianwala Bagh, a walled public garden in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, in what…

At the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress on 31 December 1920, Gandhi's programme of non-violent non-cooperation was formally adopted, marking a fundamental shift in the Congress from a…

On 4 February 1922, a crowd of protesters clashed with police in the small town of Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. The protesters set fire to the police…

On 9 August 1925, a group of revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association — including Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan — stopped Train Number 8 Down at Kakori, a small station near…

The city is Nanjing, situated on the Yangtze River in eastern China — a country occupying the eastern edge of Asia, flanked by the Pacific to the east and the Himalayas to the southwest. In 1927…

On 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a protest march in Lahore against the all-white Simon Commission, appointed to review the constitutional future of the subcontinent without a single Indian…

From February to August 1928, farmers of the Bardoli taluka in what is now Gujarat, India, conducted a sustained non-violent campaign against a 22 per cent increase in land revenue. Led by…

On the night of 31 December 1929, the Indian National Congress session in Lahore — presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru — passed the Purna Swaraj resolution demanding full independence from Britain…

On 8 April 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw two smoke bombs into the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi — then still partly under construction on the Yamuna plain in what is now…

On 6 April 1930, after a 24-day, 240-mile march from Sabarmati Ashram, Gandhi reached the coastal village of Dandi on the Gulf of Khambhat — an inlet of the Arabian Sea — in what is now Gujarat…

On 18 April 1930, Surya Sen — known as Masterda — led a group of about sixty-five revolutionaries in Chittagong (now Chattogram) in simultaneous raids on the police armoury and the Auxiliary Force…

On 5 March 1931, Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin signed the Gandhi–Irwin Pact in New Delhi — the newly built capital on the Yamuna plain in what is now north-central India. The pact suspended the Civil…

On 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were hanged at Lahore Central Jail in the city of Lahore, situated on the flat subtropical plain of the Punjab in what is now Pakistan. Bhagat…

On 24 September 1932, B. R. Ambedkar and Gandhi signed the Poona Pact in Yerwada Jail in Pune, Maharashtra, India. The agreement resolved the controversy over separate electorates for Scheduled…

Ruijin, in China's inland Jiangxi province, is where the Long March began in 1934 — a gruelling 6,000-mile fighting retreat westward and northward across some of Asia's most punishing terrain before…

On 2 August 1935, the Government of India Act 1935 received royal assent in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, on the Thames. At the time it was the longest piece of legislation ever passed…

This is Jerusalem, today in Israel, sitting at the heart of the land corridor connecting Africa to Asia — the same narrow strip where the Mediterranean world meets the Arabian Peninsula. In 1936…

This is Nanjing, China, situated on the lower Yangtze River as it flows eastward toward the Yellow Sea — the great river-delta city the title clue pointed toward. In late 1937, following the fall of…

In March–April 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps arrived in New Delhi — the capital on the Yamuna plain in what is now north-central India, backed against the distant Himalaya — with an offer of Dominion…

On 8 August 1942, the All-India Congress Committee met at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay (now Mumbai), a major port city on the Arabian Sea coast of the South Asian subcontinent in what is now…

From March to July 1944, the battles of Imphal and Kohima in what is now Manipur and Nagaland, north-eastern India, stopped the Japanese Operation U-Go — an attempt to invade the subcontinent through…

From November 1945, the British military authorities put officers of the Indian National Army — soldiers who had fought under Subhas Chandra Bose alongside Japan — on trial for treason at the Red…

On 18 February 1946, ratings of the Royal Indian Navy seized ships and shore stations in Bombay (now Mumbai) harbour — the premier naval base on the Arabian Sea coast — and went on strike, flying the…

On 16 August 1946 — Direct Action Day, called by the Muslim League — massive communal violence broke out in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the most populous city on the Bay of Bengal and the commercial…

At the stroke of midnight on 14–15 August 1947, British rule over the South Asian subcontinent ended and two independent nations came into being: Pakistan (with its capital at Karachi on the Arabian…

New Delhi, the capital of India, sits on the broad plains south of the Himalayas, roughly midway across the subcontinent that juts like a triangle into the Indian Ocean between the Arabian Sea and…

On 22 March 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten was sworn in as the last Viceroy of the subcontinent in New Delhi — the purpose-built capital on the Yamuna plain in what is now north-central India. He had…

Tel Aviv, on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Israel, sits on the narrow strip of land where the Levant's coastal plain meets the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. On May 14, 1948, David…

This event took place in Beijing, the capital of China, situated on the North China Plain where the Yellow River basin's flat heartland pushes up against the highlands leading to the Mongolian…

This was Nairobi, Kenya — sitting on a high plateau in East Africa, inland from the Indian Ocean, just south of the equator and well south of the Horn of Africa. In October 1952, Britain declared a…

Điện Biên Phủ is a valley town in northwestern Vietnam, tucked into the rugged highlands where the long, narrow Indochinese Peninsula pushes south from the underbelly of southern China — exactly the…

This is Algiers, the capital of Algeria — a country stretching from the Mediterranean's southern shore deep into the Sahara, directly across the sea from France and Spain. In 1954, the National…

This is Alexandria, Egypt — on the Mediterranean's southern edge where northeastern Africa faces Europe across a narrow sea, at the northern mouth of the canal that cuts through the isthmus…

This event unfolded across China — the world's most populous country, occupying the eastern portion of Asia between the Himalayas to the southwest, the Gobi Desert to the north, and the Pacific Ocean…

On 12 December 1963, Kenya became independent from British colonial rule, with Jomo Kenyatta becoming its first Prime Minister and later its first President. Kenya had been a British colony since the…

This was Beijing, the capital of China — sitting on the North China Plain, the great flat lowland that stretches between the Yellow River to the south and the mountains ringing the north, at the…

This is Jerusalem, the ancient hilltop city in Israel, sitting at the heart of the narrow land bridge where the African continent meets Asia — exactly where the Mediterranean coast, the Jordan River…

This event unfolded in Beijing, the capital of China — a city sitting on the North China Plain, inland from the Yellow Sea, anchoring the northern heartland of the world's most populous nation…

This is Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China — the immense paved plaza at the symbolic centre of the North China Plain, where the ancient imperial capital sits between the Taihang Mountains to the west…