India Important dates

Question 1

2500 BCE

Answer 1

Stone Age, tool cultures

Question 2

2500-1500 BCE

Answer 2

Harappa and Mohenjo Daro (and Dholavira) INDUS VALLEY Cvilizations (urban)

Question 3

1200-1400 BCE

Answer 3

Vedas, late Vedas; Vedic period

Question 4

600-300 BCE

Answer 4

Early states; Persian kings rule western India; Rise of Hindu (Brahmanism), Buddhist, and Jain traditions

Question 5

400s BCE

Answer 5

Life of Buddha - Siddhartha Gautama; Buddhism composition of Ramayana and Mahabharata (epic texts)

Question 6

327 BCE

Answer 6

Alexander the Great enters Punjab

Question 7

! 600s CE !

Answer 7

Founding of ISLAM

Question 8

! 800s CE !

Answer 8

ISLAM spreads via trade routes from western Mediterranean to India

Question 9

1100 CE

Answer 9

Genghis Khan, Mongol emperor
military revolution/technologies of war, horseback

Question 10

1492 CE

Answer 10

Christopher Columbus (Italian explorer, for Spain)

Question 11

! 1498 CE !

Answer 11

Vasco de Gama (Portuguese explorer)

Question 12

! 1500s CE !

Answer 12

Founding of Sikhism by Guru Nanak

Question 13

! 1526 CE !

Answer 13

Babur, 1st Mughal emperor (Mongol and Turk ancestry)

Question 14

15th - 17th c.

Answer 14

European traders enter existing African-Arab-Asian trade networks
(VOC-Dutch, French, British East India Company enter; Portuguese waning)
! 1600 !: British East India Company (BEIC) founded
! 1619 !: Mughal Emperor Jahangir gives permission to BEIC to trade in India

Question 15

1707

Answer 15

Aurangzeb dies (last Mughal emperor with power; those following are “
“emperors”
in
name only, with no power)

Question 16

! 1757 !

Answer 16

Lord Clive; Battle of Plassey
British > Trading Empire

Question 17

19th c.

Answer 17

British power increases; French, Dutch and Portuguese decline.

Question 18

! 1857 !

Answer 18

Sepoy Mutiny or First War of Independence?

Question 19

! 1858 !

Answer 19

British Crown in control following events of 1857
British › Administrative Empire

Question 20

! 1876-77 !

Answer 20

Queen Victoria proclaims herself - Empress of India

Question 21

! 1885 !

Answer 21

Indian National Congress formed (elite Indians; moderates and
extremists)

Question 22

1893

Answer 22

Gandhi leaves for South Africa; experiments with civil disobedience

Question 23

1896

Answer 23

Start of India’s cinema industry (largest in the world)

Question 24

late 19th
to
early 20th c.

Answer 24

High Empire: great social and political change

Question 25

1905

Answer 25

Partition of Bengal (province) into East Bengal and West Bengal

Question 26

1911

Answer 26

East Bengal reunified into Bengal

Question 27

1915

Answer 27

Gandhi returns to India from South Africa

Question 28

1920s-30s

Answer 28

High nationalist period

Question 29

! 1930 !

Answer 29

Gandhi’ Salt March

Question 30

! 1947 !

Answer 30

Partition of British India into India and Pakistan (east and west)
-Jawaharlal Nehru is first Prime Minister

Question 31

1948

Answer 31

Gandhi assassinated by a Hindu extremist

Question 32

! 1972 !

Answer 32

Following war, East Pakistan now independent Bangladesh

Question 33

1974

Answer 33

India conducts its first nuclear test

Question 34

1980s

Answer 34

a stable, modern, multicultural democracy

Question 35

! early 1990s !

Answer 35

Economic liberalization policies; India’s most recent rise in the global economy
Rise of communalism/religious nationalism

Question 36

through —today

Answer 36

Postcolonial South Asia; 75+ years post-Partition, post-independence