157 years ago today
Mahatma Gandhi Is Born
On October 2nd, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, a coastal town in present-day Gujarat, India. He would become the most transformative political figure of the 20th century — developing the philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience (satyagraha) that dismantled British colonial rule over India without a conventional war. A London-trained barrister, Gandhi first practiced his methods in South Africa fighting racial discrimination before returning to India in 1915. His campaigns — the Non-Cooperation Movement, the Salt March, the Quit India Movement — mobilized millions and made British governance of India untenable. India gained independence on August 15, 1947. Gandhi's birthday is now observed as the International Day of Non-Violence by the United Nations.
Mahatma Gandhi
Father of the Indian Nation
The lawyer and activist who developed nonviolent civil disobedience into a world-changing political weapon, leading India to independence from Britain and inspiring generations of civil rights leaders around the globe.
Groucho Marx
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French explorer Jacques Cartier reaches the Iroquoian village of Hochelaga on the St. Lawrence River. He climbs the hill he names Mont Royal, giving the future city its name.
British Major John André Executed as a Spy
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Gandhi Born in Porbandar
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in the coastal town of Porbandar, India. He will grow up to lead the world's largest nonviolent independence movement, inspiring civil rights leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela.
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Peanuts Comic Strip Debuts
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Thurgood Marshall Sworn In as First Black Supreme Court Justice
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Scottish Chemist
Nobel Prize-winning chemist who discovered the noble gases — argon, helium, neon, krypton, and xenon — an entire new group of the periodic table found by a single scientist.
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