The Indian National Congress holds its first session in Bombay; it later leads the independence movement.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in Porbandar; he becomes the leader of India's nonviolent independence movement.
After the 1857 rebellion, the Government of India Act transfers rule from the East India Company to the British Crown; the Mughal Empire formally ends.
Sepoys mutiny at Meerut, sparking a widespread uprising against East India Company rule across northern and central India.
Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore becomes the first Asian Nobel laureate, honoured chiefly for Gitanjali.
Troops under General Reginald Dyer fire on an unarmed crowd in Amritsar, killing hundreds and fuelling anti-colonial sentiment.
Gandhi leads a nonviolent march to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax, launching the civil disobedience movement.