What happened in history in India

Meditation was first developed in India. The oldest documented evidence of the practice of meditation is wall arts in the Indian subcontinent from approximately 5,000 to 3,500 BCE, showing people seated in meditative postures with half-closed eyes.

The Nandas built on the successes of their Haryanka and Shaishunaga predecessors and instituted a more centralized administration. Ancient sources credit them with amassing great wealth, which was probably a result of the introduction of a new currency and taxation system.

In South India, the Neolithic began by 3000 BCE and lasted until around 1400 BCE. South Indian Neolithic is characterized by Ashmounds since 2500 BCE in the Andhra-Karnataka region that expanded later into Tamil Nadu.

Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are also classified as Eastern religions.

The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. Its history overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age.

Indian martial arts in medieval texts such as the Agni Purana and the Malla Purana.

In 1206, the Mamluk commander of the Muslim forces in the Indian subcontinent, Qutb al-Din Aibak, proclaimed himself Sultan, creating the Mamluk Sultanate in Delhi which lasted until 1290.

The Mature Indus civilization flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the beginning of urban civilization on the Indian subcontinent. The civilization included cities such as Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, and Lothal in modern-day India.

The civilization was primarily centered in modern-day Pakistan, in the Indus river basin, and secondarily in the Ghaggar-Hakra river basin in eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. The Mature Indus civilization flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the beginning of urban civilization on the Indian subcontinent.

This civilization flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in what today is Pakistan and north-western India and was noted for its urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage, and water supply.

Bactria was the homeland of Indo-Iranians who moved south-west into Iran and the north-west of the Indian subcontinent around 2500–2000 BC.

The Deccan famine of 1630–1632 was a famine in the Deccan Plateau and Gujarat. The famine was the result of three consecutive staple crop failures, leading to intense hunger, disease, and displacement in the region. This famine remains one of the most devastating famines in the history of India, and was the most serious famine to occur in the Mughal Empire. The Dutch report gives an overall death toll of 7.4 million by late 1631, which might be for the whole region.

Waghya was born in Raigad, Maratha Empire.

After Chhatrapati Shivaji's death, the Waghya mourned and jumped into his master's funeral pyre and immolated himself.

Deccan Famine of 1702–1704 was a famine in India. It began in 1702. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 2 million people.

On 7 October 1737, a natural disaster struck the city of Calcutta (modern-day Kolkata) in India. For a long time this was believed in Europe to have been the result of an earthquake, but it is now believed to have been a tropical cyclone. Thomas Joshua Moore, the duties collector for the British East India Company in Calcutta, wrote in his official report that a storm and flood had destroyed nearly all the thatched buildings and killed 3,000 of the city's inhabitants. Other reports from merchant ships indicated an earthquake and tidal surge were to blame, destroying 20,000 ships in the harbor and killing 300,000 people. The population of Calcutta at the time was around 3,000–20,000.

The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 was a famine between 1769 and 1773 (1176 to 1180 in the Bengali calendar) that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India from Bihar to the Bengal region. The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of about 10 million people.

The Chalisa famine of 1783–1784 in the Indian subcontinent followed unusual El Niño events that began in 1780 and caused droughts throughout the region. The famine affected many parts of North India, especially the Delhi territories, present-day Uttar Pradesh, Eastern Punjab, Rajputana, and Kashmir, then all ruled by different Indian rulers. It is thought that up to 11 million people may have died in the two famines.

The Doji bara famine (also, Skull famine) of 1791-92 in the Indian subcontinent was brought on by a major El Niño event lasting from 1789 CE to 1795 CE and producing prolonged droughts. The resulting famine, which was severe, caused widespread mortality in Hyderabad, Southern Maratha Kingdom, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar.

On 25 November 1839, an enormous cyclone caused a 40-foot storm surge (unconfirmed) that hit Coringa, Andhra Pradesh, wiped out the harbor city, destroyed vessels in its bay, and killed 300,000 people. Survivors never entirely rebuilt the city.

The Doab famine of 1860–1861 was a famine in India that affected the Ganga-Yamuna Doab in the North-Western Provinces, large parts of Rohilkhand and Awadh, the Delhi and Hissar divisions of the Punjab, all in British India, then under Crown rule, and the eastern regions of the princely states of Rajputana. Up to 2 million people are thought to have perished in the famine.

The Orissa famine of 1866 affected the east coast of India from Madras northwards, an area covering 180,000 miles and containing a population of 47,500,000; the impact of the famine, however, was greatest in Orissa, now Odisha, which at that time was quite isolated from the rest of India. In Odisha, one third of the population died due to famine. In Odisha alone, at least 1 million people, a third of the population, died in 1866, and overall in the region approximately 4 to 5 million died in the two-year period

The monsoon of 1868 was late in coming. When it came, was light and brief, lasting until only August 1868.

The Rajputana famine of 1869 (1868-1870) affected an area of 296,000 square miles (770,000 km2) and a population of 44,500,000, primarily in the princely states of Rajputana, India, and the British territory of Ajmer. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 1.5 million people.

Late in 1868, epidemics of cholera broke out among the vulnerable population, and there was no harvest in the spring of 1869. Many inhabitants of the famine-stricken regions of Rajputana (for example, two-thirds of the population of Marwar) emigrated with their livestock or herds. Initially, they did not go to the British territory of Ajmer, where relief works had been arranged; many wandered in search of food until they died from starvation.

In May 1869, many villagers, who had emigrated earlier now returned to their villages believing that the rains would be early. However, the rains held off until mid-July and, in the interim, many thousands more died of starvation. Even so, the autumn harvest promised to be abundant, but swarms of locusts descended upon the fields and destroyed the young crops.

In September and October 1869, there were heavy rains that, although good for the spring harvest, caused an epidemic of malaria and killed many more.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 into a Gujarati Hindu Modh Baniya family in Porbandar (also known as Sudamapuri), a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandar in the Kathiawar Agency of the Indian Empire.

Finally, the anticipated harvest of spring 1870 arrived and ended the famine.

The Great Famine of 1876–1878 (also the Southern India famine of 1876–1878 or the Madras famine of 1877) was a famine in India under Crown rule. It began in 1876 after an intense drought resulting in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 5.5 million people.

Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine successfully protects rabbits against an inoculation of virulent plague microbes, by treating them previously with a subcutaneous injection of a culture of the microbes in broth. The first vaccine for bubonic plague is developed. The rabbits treated in this way become immune to plague. In the next year, Haffkine causes himself to be inoculated with a similar preparation, thus proving in his own person the harmlessness of the fluid. This is considered the first vaccine against bubonic plague.

Churchill proceeded to New York City and, in admiration of the United States, wrote to his mother about "what an extraordinary people the Americans are!" With the Hussars, he went to Bombay in October 1896. Based in Bangalore, he was in India for 19 months, visiting Calcutta three times and joining expeditions to Hyderabad and the Northwest Frontier.

Indian Famine of 1896–1902 was a famine in India. It began in 1896. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 2 million people.

Churchill returned to Bangalore in October 1897 and there wrote his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, which received positive reviews. He also wrote his only work of fiction, Savrola, a Ruritanian romance. To keep himself fully occupied, Churchill embraced writing as what Roy Jenkins calls his "whole habit", especially through his political career when he was out of office. It was his main safeguard against recurring depression, which he termed his "black dog".

On 2 December 1898, Churchill embarked for India to settle his military business and complete his resignation from the 4th Hussars. He spent a lot of his time there playing polo, the only ball sport in which he was ever interested.

In one 1898 letter to his mother, Churchill referred to his religious beliefs, saying: "I do not accept the Christian or any other form of religious belief". Churchill had been christened in the Church of England but, as he related later, he underwent a virulently anti-Christian phase in his youth, and as an adult was an agnostic. In another letter to one of his cousins, he referred to religion as "a delicious narcotic" and expressed a preference for Protestantism over Roman Catholicism because he felt it "a step nearer Reason".

Having left the Hussars, Churchill sailed from Bombay on 20 March 1899, determined to launch a career in politics.

In memory of Waghya, a memorial was built next to Chhatrapati Shivaji's samadhi at Raigad Fort with a donation by Indore’s Prince Tukoji Holkar in 1906, who gave ₹5,000 (US$70) towards the dog's statue.

Indira Gandhi was born as Indira Priyadarshini Nehru in a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad.

Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. The appeal of "Non-cooperation" grew, its social popularity drew participation from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.

Gandhi began his sentence on 18 March 1922. With Gandhi isolated in prison, the Indian National Congress split into two factions, , opposing this move. Furthermore, co-operation among Hindus and Muslims ended as Khilafat movement collapsed with the rise of Ataturk in Turkey. Muslim leaders left the Congress and began forming Muslim organizations. The political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions.

Gandhi was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only two years.

Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale (the key leader of the Congress Party). Gandhi took leadership of the Congress in 1920 and began escalating demands until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognize the declaration but negotiations ensued, with the Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s.

Gandhi sent an ultimatum in the form of a polite letter to the viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, on 2 March. A young left wing British Quaker by the name of Reg Reynolds delivered the letter. Gandhi condemned British rule in the letter, describing it as "a curse" that "has impoverished the dumb millions by a system of progressive exploitation and by a ruinously expensive military and civil administration... It has reduced us politically to serfdom." Gandhi also mentioned in the letter that the viceroy received a salary "over five thousand times India's average income. British violence, Gandhi promised, was going to be defeated by Indian non-violence.

This (Gandhi's letter to the viceroy of India) was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where, together with 78 volunteers, he marched 388 kilometres (241 mi) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, with the declared intention of breaking the salt laws. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. The march took 25 days to cover 240 miles with Gandhi speaking to often huge crowds along the way.

She arrived in India in 1929 and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, in the lower Himalayas, where she learned Bengali and taught at St. Teresa's School near her convent. Teresa took her first religious vows on 24 May 1931. She chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries; because a nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for its Spanish spelling (Teresa).

In 1932, Gandhi began a new campaign to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he started referring to as Harijans or "the children of god". On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement. This new campaign was not universally embraced within the Dalit community. Ambedkar and his allies felt Gandhi was being paternalistic and was undermining Dalit political rights.

Reportedly by Mid-Day, the statue of Waghya was erected on a Samadhi at Shivaji's memorial in 1936 under the banner of Shri Shivaji Raigad Smarak Samati (SSRSS) in leadership of Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar.

Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have been compiled during the 2nd millennium BCE, in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent.

Iron using and ironworking were prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE.

Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have been compiled during the 2nd millennium BCE.

Indo-Aryan peoples refer to both the pastoralist Indo-European people migrating from Central Asia into South Asia in the second millennium BCE.

During the 2nd millennium BCE, Ochre Coloured Pottery culture was in the Ganga Yamuna Doab region.

During her time in Europe, Indira was plagued with ill-health and was constantly attended to by doctors. She had to make repeated trips to Switzerland to recover, disrupting her studies. She was being treated there in 1940, when the German armies rapidly conquered Europe. Gandhi tried to return to England through Portugal but was left stranded for nearly two months. She managed to enter England in early 1941, and from there returned to India without completing her studies at Oxford. The university later awarded her an honorary degree.

During her stay in Great Britain, Indira frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. The marriage took place in Allahabad according to Adi Dharm rituals though Feroze belonged to a Zoroastrian Parsi family of Gujarat.

The Bengal famine of 1943-1944 was a devastating famine in the Bengal province of British India during World War II. An estimated 2.1–3 million, out of a population of 60.3 million, died of starvation, malaria, or other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care.

The Japanese launched an operation against British positions in Manipur, India. The operation took place from March till June 1944. The offensive culminated in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima, where the Japanese and were first held and then pushed back.

Gandhi was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage".

The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of the Japanese U-Go offensive into India in 1944 during the Second World War. The battle was fought in three stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland in northeast India. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops. From 18 April to 13 May, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge at this point but continued to block the Kohima–Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June, the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the Siege of Imphal.

The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in northeast India from 8 March until 3 July 1944. Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses.

Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his brahmacharya. The experiments began some time after the death of his wife in February 1944. At the start of his experiment, he had women sleep in the same room but in different beds. He later slept with women in the same bed but clothed, and finally, he slept naked with women. In April 1945, Gandhi referenced being naked with several "women or girls" in a letter to Birla as part of the experiments.

In August 1947 the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved.

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple, white cotton sari with a blue border. Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent several months in Patna to receive basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital and ventured into the slums.

The CBS document states that the first national flag was designed upon the request of Jigme Wangchuck, the second Druk Gyalpo of the 20th-century Kingdom of Bhutan, and was introduced in 1949 during the signing of the Indo-Bhutan Treaty.

Narendra Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat).

On 7 October 1950, Teresa received Vatican permission for the diocesan congregation, which would become the Missionaries of Charity. In her words, it would care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone".

In 1952, Teresa opened her first hospice with help from Kolkata officials. She converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, free for the poor, and renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday).

Mercury spent most of his childhood in India where he began taking piano lessons at the age of seven while living with relatives.

In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter's School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani near Mumbai.

Tito visited India from 22 December 1954 through 8 January 1955.

At the age of 12, he formed a school band, the Hectics, and covered rock and roll artists such as Cliff Richard and Little Richard.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Indira Gandhi served as the President of the Congress. In that capacity, she was instrumental in getting the Communist led Kerala State Government dismissed in 1959. That government had the distinction of being India's first ever elected Communist Government.

Her marriage lasted 18 years, until Feroze died of a heart attack in 1960.

After her father's death in 1964 she was appointed as a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and served in Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's cabinet as Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

In January 1966, after Shastri's death, the Congress legislative party elected Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai as their leader. Congress party veteran K. Kamaraj was instrumental in achieving Indira's victory. Because she was a woman, other political leaders in India saw Gandhi as weak and hoped to use her as a puppet once elected.

The first electoral test for Indira was the 1967 general elections for the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The Congress Party won a reduced majority for the Lok Sabha in these elections owing to widespread disenchantment over rising prices of commodities, unemployment, economic stagnation and a food crisis. Gandhi herself was elected to Lok Sabha from the Raebareli constituency.

On 22 August 1967, she became the Minister of External Affairs of India until 14 March 1969.

The New Delhi Conference, held in February and March 1968, was a forum that allowed developing countries to reach an agreement on the basic principles of their development policies. The conference in New Delhi was an opportunity for schemes to be finally approved. The conference provided a major impetus in persuading the North to follow up UNCTAD I resolutions, in establishing generalized preferences. The target for private and official flows to LDCs was raised to 1% of the North's GNP, but the developed countries failed to commit themselves to achieve the target by a specific date. This has proven a continuing point of debate at UNCTAD conferences. The conference led to the International Sugar Agreement, which seeks to stabilize world sugar prices.

On 17 July 1969, She became the Minister of Finance of India until 27 June 1970.

On 27 June 1970, she became the Minister of Home Affairs of India until 4 February 1973.

Garibi Hatao (Eradicate Poverty) was the theme for Gandhi's 1971 political bid. The Garibi Hatao slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. This would allow her to bypass the dominant rural castes both in and of state and local governments; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight. The programs created through Garibi Hatao, though carried out locally, were funded and developed by the Central Government in New Delhi. The program was supervised and staffed by the Indian National Congress party. "These programs also provided the central political leadership with new and vast patronage resources to be disbursed... throughout the country."

Indira Gandhi won the 1971 Indian general election.

Gita Gopinath was born on 8 December 1971 in Calcutta, India in a Malayali family. She is the younger of two daughters of T.V. Gopinath and V.C. Vijayalakshmi. Her family is related to the late A. K. Gopalan.

Despite the victory against Pakistan, the Congress government faced numerous problems during this term. Some of these were due to high inflation which was in turn caused by war time expenses, drought in some parts of the country and more importantly, the 1973 oil crisis.

India has conducted nuclear weapons tests in a pair of series namely Pokhran I and Pokhran II. India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory.

On 12 June 1975, the Allahabad High Court declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha in 1971 void on grounds of electoral malpractice. The court ordered her stripped of her parliamentary seat and banned from running for any office for six years. As the constitution holds that the Prime Minister must be a member of either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha, the two houses of the Parliament of India, this would have effectively removed her from office. However, Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. Gandhi insisted that the conviction did not undermine her position, despite having been unseated from Lok Sabha.

Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency because of the disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on 25 June 1975.

On 30 November 1975, she became Minister of Defence of India for a month.

In 1977, after extending the state of emergency twice, Indira Gandhi called elections to give the electorate a chance to vindicate her rule. Gandhi may have grossly misjudged her popularity by reading what the heavily censored press wrote about her. Gandhi's Congress party was crushed soundly in the elections. The public realized the statement and motto of the Janata Party alliance. Indira and Sanjay Gandhi both lost their seats, and Congress was cut down to 153 seats (compared with 350 in the previous Lok Sabha), 92 of which were in the South.

The 1977 Andhra Pradesh cyclone was a devastating tropical cyclone that hit Andhra Pradesh on November 14, 1977, killing at least 10,000 people.

Modi became an RSS sambhag pracharak (regional organiser) in 1978, overseeing RSS activities in the areas of Surat and Vadodara.

In 1978 Modi received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from School of Open Learning at University of Delhi, graduating with a third class.

She won a by-election from the Chikmagalur Constituency to the Lok Sabha in November 1978.

In 1979, the government started to unravel over the issue of dual loyalties of some members to Janata and the RSS. The ambitious Union Finance minister, Charan Singh, who as the Union Home Minister during the previous year had ordered arrest of Gandhi, took advantage of this and started courting the Congress.

Charan Singh was appointed Prime Minister, by President Reddy, after Indira and Sanjay Gandhi promised Singh that Congress would support his government from outside on certain conditions. The conditions included dropping all charges against Indira and Sanjay. Since Charan Singh refused to drop the charges, Congress withdrew its support and President Reddy dissolved Parliament in August 1979.

In 1980, As a tribute to her son's dream of launching an indigenously manufactured car, Gandhi nationalized Sanjay's debt ridden company called Maruti Udyog for Rs. 4.34 crore and invited joint venture bids from automobile companies around the world.

Before the 1980 elections Gandhi approached the then Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Abdullah Bukhari and entered into an agreement with him on the basis of 10-point programme to secure the support of the Muslim votes. In the elections held in January, Congress returned to power with a landslide majority.

On 23 June, Gandhi's son Sanjay was killed in an air crash while performing an aerobatic manoeuvre in New Delhi.

Five years later, in 1983, he received a Master of Arts degree in political science from Gujarat University, as an external distance learning student.

On 23 April 1983, the Punjab Police Deputy Inspector General A. S. Atwal was shot dead as he left the Temple compound. The following day, after the murder, Harchand Singh Longowal confirmed the involvement of Bhindranwale in the murder.

Meditation was first developed in India. The oldest documented evidence of the practice of meditation is wall arts in the Indian subcontinent from approximately 5,000 to 3,500 BCE, showing people seated in meditative postures with half-closed eyes.

The Nandas built on the successes of their Haryanka and Shaishunaga predecessors and instituted a more centralized administration. Ancient sources credit them with amassing great wealth, which was probably a result of the introduction of a new currency and taxation system.

In South India, the Neolithic began by 3000 BCE and lasted until around 1400 BCE. South Indian Neolithic is characterized by Ashmounds since 2500 BCE in the Andhra-Karnataka region that expanded later into Tamil Nadu.

Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are also classified as Eastern religions.

The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. Its history overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age.

Indian martial arts in medieval texts such as the Agni Purana and the Malla Purana.

In 1206, the Mamluk commander of the Muslim forces in the Indian subcontinent, Qutb al-Din Aibak, proclaimed himself Sultan, creating the Mamluk Sultanate in Delhi which lasted until 1290.

The Mature Indus civilization flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the beginning of urban civilization on the Indian subcontinent. The civilization included cities such as Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, and Lothal in modern-day India.

The civilization was primarily centered in modern-day Pakistan, in the Indus river basin, and secondarily in the Ghaggar-Hakra river basin in eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. The Mature Indus civilization flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the beginning of urban civilization on the Indian subcontinent.

This civilization flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in what today is Pakistan and north-western India and was noted for its urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage, and water supply.

Bactria was the homeland of Indo-Iranians who moved south-west into Iran and the north-west of the Indian subcontinent around 2500–2000 BC.

The Deccan famine of 1630–1632 was a famine in the Deccan Plateau and Gujarat. The famine was the result of three consecutive staple crop failures, leading to intense hunger, disease, and displacement in the region. This famine remains one of the most devastating famines in the history of India, and was the most serious famine to occur in the Mughal Empire. The Dutch report gives an overall death toll of 7.4 million by late 1631, which might be for the whole region.

Waghya was born in Raigad, Maratha Empire.

After Chhatrapati Shivaji's death, the Waghya mourned and jumped into his master's funeral pyre and immolated himself.

Deccan Famine of 1702–1704 was a famine in India. It began in 1702. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 2 million people.

On 7 October 1737, a natural disaster struck the city of Calcutta (modern-day Kolkata) in India. For a long time this was believed in Europe to have been the result of an earthquake, but it is now believed to have been a tropical cyclone. Thomas Joshua Moore, the duties collector for the British East India Company in Calcutta, wrote in his official report that a storm and flood had destroyed nearly all the thatched buildings and killed 3,000 of the city's inhabitants. Other reports from merchant ships indicated an earthquake and tidal surge were to blame, destroying 20,000 ships in the harbor and killing 300,000 people. The population of Calcutta at the time was around 3,000–20,000.

The Great Bengal Famine of 1770 was a famine between 1769 and 1773 (1176 to 1180 in the Bengali calendar) that affected the lower Gangetic plain of India from Bihar to the Bengal region. The famine is estimated to have caused the deaths of about 10 million people.

The Chalisa famine of 1783–1784 in the Indian subcontinent followed unusual El Niño events that began in 1780 and caused droughts throughout the region. The famine affected many parts of North India, especially the Delhi territories, present-day Uttar Pradesh, Eastern Punjab, Rajputana, and Kashmir, then all ruled by different Indian rulers. It is thought that up to 11 million people may have died in the two famines.

The Doji bara famine (also, Skull famine) of 1791-92 in the Indian subcontinent was brought on by a major El Niño event lasting from 1789 CE to 1795 CE and producing prolonged droughts. The resulting famine, which was severe, caused widespread mortality in Hyderabad, Southern Maratha Kingdom, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar.

On 25 November 1839, an enormous cyclone caused a 40-foot storm surge (unconfirmed) that hit Coringa, Andhra Pradesh, wiped out the harbor city, destroyed vessels in its bay, and killed 300,000 people. Survivors never entirely rebuilt the city.

The Doab famine of 1860–1861 was a famine in India that affected the Ganga-Yamuna Doab in the North-Western Provinces, large parts of Rohilkhand and Awadh, the Delhi and Hissar divisions of the Punjab, all in British India, then under Crown rule, and the eastern regions of the princely states of Rajputana. Up to 2 million people are thought to have perished in the famine.

The Orissa famine of 1866 affected the east coast of India from Madras northwards, an area covering 180,000 miles and containing a population of 47,500,000; the impact of the famine, however, was greatest in Orissa, now Odisha, which at that time was quite isolated from the rest of India. In Odisha, one third of the population died due to famine. In Odisha alone, at least 1 million people, a third of the population, died in 1866, and overall in the region approximately 4 to 5 million died in the two-year period

The monsoon of 1868 was late in coming. When it came, was light and brief, lasting until only August 1868.

The Rajputana famine of 1869 (1868-1870) affected an area of 296,000 square miles (770,000 km2) and a population of 44,500,000, primarily in the princely states of Rajputana, India, and the British territory of Ajmer. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 1.5 million people.

Late in 1868, epidemics of cholera broke out among the vulnerable population, and there was no harvest in the spring of 1869. Many inhabitants of the famine-stricken regions of Rajputana (for example, two-thirds of the population of Marwar) emigrated with their livestock or herds. Initially, they did not go to the British territory of Ajmer, where relief works had been arranged; many wandered in search of food until they died from starvation.

In May 1869, many villagers, who had emigrated earlier now returned to their villages believing that the rains would be early. However, the rains held off until mid-July and, in the interim, many thousands more died of starvation. Even so, the autumn harvest promised to be abundant, but swarms of locusts descended upon the fields and destroyed the young crops.

In September and October 1869, there were heavy rains that, although good for the spring harvest, caused an epidemic of malaria and killed many more.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 into a Gujarati Hindu Modh Baniya family in Porbandar (also known as Sudamapuri), a coastal town on the Kathiawar Peninsula and then part of the small princely state of Porbandar in the Kathiawar Agency of the Indian Empire.

Finally, the anticipated harvest of spring 1870 arrived and ended the famine.

The Great Famine of 1876–1878 (also the Southern India famine of 1876–1878 or the Madras famine of 1877) was a famine in India under Crown rule. It began in 1876 after an intense drought resulting in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 5.5 million people.

Russian bacteriologist Waldemar Haffkine successfully protects rabbits against an inoculation of virulent plague microbes, by treating them previously with a subcutaneous injection of a culture of the microbes in broth. The first vaccine for bubonic plague is developed. The rabbits treated in this way become immune to plague. In the next year, Haffkine causes himself to be inoculated with a similar preparation, thus proving in his own person the harmlessness of the fluid. This is considered the first vaccine against bubonic plague.

Churchill proceeded to New York City and, in admiration of the United States, wrote to his mother about "what an extraordinary people the Americans are!" With the Hussars, he went to Bombay in October 1896. Based in Bangalore, he was in India for 19 months, visiting Calcutta three times and joining expeditions to Hyderabad and the Northwest Frontier.

Indian Famine of 1896–1902 was a famine in India. It began in 1896. The death toll from this famine is estimated to be in the range of 2 million people.

Churchill returned to Bangalore in October 1897 and there wrote his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, which received positive reviews. He also wrote his only work of fiction, Savrola, a Ruritanian romance. To keep himself fully occupied, Churchill embraced writing as what Roy Jenkins calls his "whole habit", especially through his political career when he was out of office. It was his main safeguard against recurring depression, which he termed his "black dog".

On 2 December 1898, Churchill embarked for India to settle his military business and complete his resignation from the 4th Hussars. He spent a lot of his time there playing polo, the only ball sport in which he was ever interested.

In one 1898 letter to his mother, Churchill referred to his religious beliefs, saying: "I do not accept the Christian or any other form of religious belief". Churchill had been christened in the Church of England but, as he related later, he underwent a virulently anti-Christian phase in his youth, and as an adult was an agnostic. In another letter to one of his cousins, he referred to religion as "a delicious narcotic" and expressed a preference for Protestantism over Roman Catholicism because he felt it "a step nearer Reason".

Having left the Hussars, Churchill sailed from Bombay on 20 March 1899, determined to launch a career in politics.

In memory of Waghya, a memorial was built next to Chhatrapati Shivaji's samadhi at Raigad Fort with a donation by Indore’s Prince Tukoji Holkar in 1906, who gave ₹5,000 (US$70) towards the dog's statue.

Indira Gandhi was born as Indira Priyadarshini Nehru in a Kashmiri Pandit family on 19 November 1917 in Allahabad.

Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include the swadeshi policy – the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. The appeal of "Non-cooperation" grew, its social popularity drew participation from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested on 10 March 1922, tried for sedition, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.

Gandhi began his sentence on 18 March 1922. With Gandhi isolated in prison, the Indian National Congress split into two factions, , opposing this move. Furthermore, co-operation among Hindus and Muslims ended as Khilafat movement collapsed with the rise of Ataturk in Turkey. Muslim leaders left the Congress and began forming Muslim organizations. The political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions.

Gandhi was released in February 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only two years.

Gandhi joined the Indian National Congress and was introduced to Indian issues, politics and the Indian people primarily by Gokhale (the key leader of the Congress Party). Gandhi took leadership of the Congress in 1920 and began escalating demands until on 26 January 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognize the declaration but negotiations ensued, with the Congress taking a role in provincial government in the late 1930s.

Gandhi sent an ultimatum in the form of a polite letter to the viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, on 2 March. A young left wing British Quaker by the name of Reg Reynolds delivered the letter. Gandhi condemned British rule in the letter, describing it as "a curse" that "has impoverished the dumb millions by a system of progressive exploitation and by a ruinously expensive military and civil administration... It has reduced us politically to serfdom." Gandhi also mentioned in the letter that the viceroy received a salary "over five thousand times India's average income. British violence, Gandhi promised, was going to be defeated by Indian non-violence.

This (Gandhi's letter to the viceroy of India) was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where, together with 78 volunteers, he marched 388 kilometres (241 mi) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, with the declared intention of breaking the salt laws. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. The march took 25 days to cover 240 miles with Gandhi speaking to often huge crowds along the way.

She arrived in India in 1929 and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, in the lower Himalayas, where she learned Bengali and taught at St. Teresa's School near her convent. Teresa took her first religious vows on 24 May 1931. She chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries; because a nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for its Spanish spelling (Teresa).

In 1932, Gandhi began a new campaign to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he started referring to as Harijans or "the children of god". On 8 May 1933, Gandhi began a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement. This new campaign was not universally embraced within the Dalit community. Ambedkar and his allies felt Gandhi was being paternalistic and was undermining Dalit political rights.

Reportedly by Mid-Day, the statue of Waghya was erected on a Samadhi at Shivaji's memorial in 1936 under the banner of Shri Shivaji Raigad Smarak Samati (SSRSS) in leadership of Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar.

Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have been compiled during the 2nd millennium BCE, in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent.

Iron using and ironworking were prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE.

Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have been compiled during the 2nd millennium BCE.

Indo-Aryan peoples refer to both the pastoralist Indo-European people migrating from Central Asia into South Asia in the second millennium BCE.

During the 2nd millennium BCE, Ochre Coloured Pottery culture was in the Ganga Yamuna Doab region.

During her time in Europe, Indira was plagued with ill-health and was constantly attended to by doctors. She had to make repeated trips to Switzerland to recover, disrupting her studies. She was being treated there in 1940, when the German armies rapidly conquered Europe. Gandhi tried to return to England through Portugal but was left stranded for nearly two months. She managed to enter England in early 1941, and from there returned to India without completing her studies at Oxford. The university later awarded her an honorary degree.

During her stay in Great Britain, Indira frequently met her future husband Feroze Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi), whom she knew from Allahabad, and who was studying at the London School of Economics. The marriage took place in Allahabad according to Adi Dharm rituals though Feroze belonged to a Zoroastrian Parsi family of Gujarat.

The Bengal famine of 1943-1944 was a devastating famine in the Bengal province of British India during World War II. An estimated 2.1–3 million, out of a population of 60.3 million, died of starvation, malaria, or other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions and lack of health care.

The Japanese launched an operation against British positions in Manipur, India. The operation took place from March till June 1944. The offensive culminated in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima, where the Japanese and were first held and then pushed back.

Gandhi was released before the end of the war on 6 May 1944 because of his failing health and necessary surgery; the Raj did not want him to die in prison and enrage the nation. He came out of detention to an altered political scene – the Muslim League for example, which a few years earlier had appeared marginal, "now occupied the centre of the political stage".

The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of the Japanese U-Go offensive into India in 1944 during the Second World War. The battle was fought in three stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland in northeast India. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops. From 18 April to 13 May, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge at this point but continued to block the Kohima–Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June, the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the Siege of Imphal.

The Battle of Imphal took place in the region around the city of Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in northeast India from 8 March until 3 July 1944. Japanese armies attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal and invade India, but were driven back into Burma with heavy losses.

Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his brahmacharya. The experiments began some time after the death of his wife in February 1944. At the start of his experiment, he had women sleep in the same room but in different beds. He later slept with women in the same bed but clothed, and finally, he slept naked with women. In April 1945, Gandhi referenced being naked with several "women or girls" in a letter to Birla as part of the experiments.

In August 1947 the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved.

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple, white cotton sari with a blue border. Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent several months in Patna to receive basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital and ventured into the slums.

The CBS document states that the first national flag was designed upon the request of Jigme Wangchuck, the second Druk Gyalpo of the 20th-century Kingdom of Bhutan, and was introduced in 1949 during the signing of the Indo-Bhutan Treaty.

Narendra Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat).