British Raj

State · 1859–1947 CE · at its largest around 1917 CE

Railways, telegraphs and English-language universities spread across India under the Crown, while famines and economic extraction bred resentment. The era produced Tagore, Gandhi's nonviolent mass movement and a modern nationalism that ended British rule.

On its lands while it lasted

Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885 CE): Three wars in which Britain conquered Burma; the last, in 1885, ended the Konbaung dynasty at Mandalay.
Chulalongkorn (1853 CE – 1910 CE): King Rama V of Siam, who modernised the state, abolished slavery and preserved Siamese independence amid British and French colonial expansion.
British Raj (1858–1947 CE): After the 1857 rebellion the British Crown took direct rule of India from the East India Company, governing until independence in 1947.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 CE – 1941 CE): Bengali poet, writer and composer, in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Swami Vivekananda (1863 CE – 1902 CE): Hindu monk who introduced Vedanta and Yoga to the West and founded the Ramakrishna Mission.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 CE – 1948 CE): Leader of the Indian independence movement who developed nonviolent mass civil disobedience (satyagraha).
Vallabhbhai Patel (1875 CE – 1950 CE): Independence leader and India's first deputy prime minister, who oversaw the integration of the princely states.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876 CE – 1948 CE): Leader of the All-India Muslim League and founder of Pakistan, its first Governor-General.
Muhammad Iqbal (1877 CE – 1938 CE): Poet and philosopher writing in Urdu and Persian whose 1930 address helped inspire the idea of Pakistan.
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 CE – 1964 CE): Leader in the independence movement and first prime minister of India, serving from 1947 until his death.
B. R. Ambedkar (1891 CE – 1956 CE): Jurist and social reformer who campaigned against caste discrimination and chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution of India.
Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919 CE): British troops under Reginald Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd in Amritsar, killing hundreds, a turning point in the independence movement.
Salt March (1930 CE): Gandhi led a 24-day march from Sabarmati to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax, launching mass civil disobedience.
Independence of India (1947 CE): India became independent on 15 August 1947, with Jawaharlal Nehru as its first prime minister.
Partition of India (1947 CE): British India was divided into India and Pakistan in August 1947, followed by communal violence and the displacement of some 15 million people.