Category: Biography Story

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was America’s most prominent civil rights activist, and many consider him to be the greatest American leader of the 20th century. His leadership was instrumental in the United States for ending legal apartheid and empowering the African-American community. He was first and foremost a moral leader who advocated peaceful resistance as a way of bringing about political change, stressing that biblical values led by love would prevail over hate and fear-driven politics. He was a gifted orator, best known for his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on August 28th 1963, at the March on Washington. 

In 1968, he was killed by an assassin’s bullet at the age of 39. Martin Luther King Jr.’s influence and legacy extended beyond the United States, affecting the fight against apartheid in South Africa. King is only one of three Americans and the only African-American to have a national holiday, which is observed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which falls on the third Monday in January, close to his birthday.

Martin Luther King Information

• Martin Luther King jr birth date: January 15, 1929

• Martin Luther King jr Birthplace: Atlanta, Georgia, U.S

• Martin Luther King jr wife: Coretta Scott ​(m. 1953)

• Martin Luther King jr children: Yolanda, Martin, Dexter, Bernice

• Martin Luther King jr death date: April 4, 1968 (aged 39)

• Martin Luther King jr death place: Memphis, Tennessee, U.S

• Martin Luther King jr cause of death: Assassination by gunshot

About Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. and Mrs Alberta Williams King. The boy’s father, Reverend Martin Luther King, was pastor of Atlanta’s historic, prominent, and prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church. 

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a cornerstone of Atlanta’s black middle class. He governed his household with the zeal of an Old Testament patriarch, and he provided a lifestyle in which his children were educated, safe, and well-fed. By the Reverend King’s order, his son (Martin Luther King Jr.) used the moniker “M.L.” during his childhood.

M.L. was born a strong and healthy baby, preceded by his sister, Willie Christine, and followed by his brother, Alfred Daniel, or A.D. The church served as the nucleus around which the King family’s life revolved. The sanctuary was also just three blocks from the large house on Auburn Avenue. 

M.L. joined Booker T. Washington High School in 1942, at the age of 13, after being slipped into grade school a year early by his parents and being bright and gifted enough to miss a few grades along the way.

He passed Morehouse College’s entrance exam two years later as an outstanding high school junior, graduated from Booker T. Washington after eleventh grade, and enrolled in Morehouse at the age of fifteen. There, he was mentored by Benjamin Mays, the school’s president and a civil rights veteran. 

King earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Morehouse College in 1948. He then enrolled at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he was elected student body president and later graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree as class valedictorian in 1951.

He graduated from Boston University with a Doctor of Philosophy in Systematic Theology in 1955. As a result, from the age of 15 to 26, King embarked on an intellectual pilgrimage. He systematised a theological and social outlook through it, which was marked by unusually profound observations and an unwavering belief in the power of nonviolence and salvation through undeserved suffering.

Who was Martin Luther King jr’s Wife?

Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott on June 18, 1953, after a whirlwind 16-month courtship. The wedding ceremony was conducted by King’s father at Scott’s parents’ home in Marion, Alabama.

Martin and Coretta Scott King had four children together-

• Yolanda Denise 

• Martin Luther III 

• Dexter Scott 

• Bernice Albertine

While their views on a variety of contentious topics vary, all four children followed in their father’s footsteps as civil rights activists. On January 30th 2006, Coretta Scott King died.

Martin Luther King Information on Career and Activism

To grasp the magnitude of King’s 13-year crusade for freedom and justice, split his career into two periods: before and after the Selma, Alabama campaign. 

The Montgomery Bus Boycott began in December 1955 and ended on March 25th 1965, with the popular voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery. During the first century, King’s sublime oratory and equally sublime bravery were fuelled by his belief in divine justice and his vision of a new Christian social order.

This resulted in a widespread acceptance of the principle of “noncooperation with evil” by Civil Rights Movement supporters. They opposed the social evils and injustices of segregation by peaceful, passive resistance, refusing to follow and/or comply with unfair and immoral Jim Crow rules. The beatings, jailings, abuses, and brutality that followed became the price that these demonstrators had to pay for their unparalleled victories.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

This initiative lasted from December 2nd 1955 to December 21st 1956, culminating in the Supreme Court declaring Alabama’s bus segregation scheme unconstitutional. King’s leadership had wrought a remarkable victory, as Montgomery blacks showed bravery, conviction, solidarity, and noble devotion to Christian values, and eventually accomplished their goal of desegregating the city’s buses, following Mrs Rosa Parks’ valiant stand and against the ensuing outcry of white hate and brutality. It was through this triumph that King and his ecclesiastical colleagues elevated the iconic status of the black clergyman as a pioneer in the fight for civil rights to new heights.

Birth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Following the success of the Montgomery campaign, King saw the need for a mass movement to build on the victory. On August 7-8, 1959, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established, and King was unanimously elected president. This was a coalition that added a distinct emphasis to the already developed mix of major civil-rights organisations.

Stride Toward Freedom

On June 13th 1957, King met with Vice President Richard M. Nixon with his best friend, the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy. King, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Lester Granger met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower a year later, on June 23rd 1958. Both Nixon and Eisenhower turned down the SCLC chief, and King eventually gave up on the possibility of collaborating with either of them.

From 1957 to 1959, King fought to-

(1) keep the Civil Rights Movement united; 

(2) raise much-needed funds; 

(3) systematise and disseminate the philosophy and practise of nonviolence, and 

(4) establish himself as a shrewd author.

Following the deranged Mrs Izola Curry’s stabbing attempt on his life on September 20th 1958, King endeared himself to millions of black and white Americans around the country when he forgave the woman and declined to press charges against her.

On November 29th 1959, the SCLC chief resigned as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and spent the next three years witnessing historic events unfold in cities across the South. In 1960, he returned to his hometown of Atlanta and joined his father as co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

He used this forum to promote the SCLC’s and the Civil Rights Movement’s goals while also attempting to maintain unity and peace among the SCLC, the NAACP, and the National Urban League. 

Throughout 1960, King was inspired by the unexpectedly positive growth of student sit-in protests around the South. The SCLC president was ecstatic that black students on so many campuses were now joining the fight. As the sit-ins grew in popularity, King boldly and firmly proclaimed his full support for their strategic bravery in the fight to desegregate eating establishments in Southern cities.

Thousands of blacks and sincere whites throughout the country pledged their allegiance to the cause using Bible-based methods of applied nonviolence (protest marches, sit-ins, and Freedom Rides). The administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had backed him up. Despite persistent misery, defeats, and notable failures, such as in Albany, Georgia (1961-1962), where the civil rights movement was completely and resoundingly defeated in its campaign to desegregate public parks, pools, lunch counters, and other services, progress was made. King and his lieutenants assessed their weakness and concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had sided with the Albany segregationists.

During the late fall and early winter of 1962, King forged a new resolve through a series of speeches and written papers. From his discussions with Alabama’s Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the head of the SCLC’s Birmingham auxiliary, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), the SCLC leader devised a plan in which a successful direct-action campaign in Birmingham would compensate for the failure in Albany and finally end legal segregation in Birmingham.

Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter From Birmingham Jail

From February to May 1963, King, Shuttlesworth, Abernathy, and others drew national attention to Birmingham with their effort to deracinate the city’s strict segregation policies and expose the world to the viciousness and brutality of the segregationists in this culture. It was bad enough that racism existed at lunch counters and in recruiting practises. 

The brutality of Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s men, who unleashed dogs and firehoses on the peaceful protesters, contributed to the embarrassment. And King was determined that he and his people would awaken America’s spiritual conscience in the streets of Birmingham.

Walk to Freedom with Martin Luther King Jr.

King was in Detroit, Michigan, sixty-six days before the famous March on Washington, at the behest of his ecclesiastical associate, the Rev. C.L. Franklin. Franklin was a member of a group that included James Del Rio, a powerful local black millionaire, and other members of the Detroit Council for Human Rights. By orchestrating a major show of support, these activists were determined to engineer a significant Kingian breakthrough in the North and, as a result, open up a new Northern front. 

Detroit, as a booming black labour town, had a strong black middle class that had grown out of the workers of its car factories. Detroit’s “Walk to Freedom With Martin Luther King Jr.” was held on June 23, 1963, along the city’s Woodward Avenue, and was organised by Tony Brown, a respected local newspaper journalist. 

A throng of 250,000 – 500,000 people marched in lockstep with the SCLC president as one single wave of humanity. The march came to an end at Covall Hall Auditorium, where King took the stage and delivered the “I Have A Dream” speech, which he would repeat sixty-six days later at the Lincoln Memorial in front of a packed house. The event was described as “extraordinary” in Business Week magazine on June 29, 1963. King was hailed as the personification of nonviolence.

And, after the success of the Birmingham movement, he was gaining regular credibility at the time of the Detroit march. The Detroit march received extensive media coverage, reinforcing the lesson King had learned from the South’s Freedom Rides, achieving genuine success in civil rights movements required doing something dramatic enough to elicit national media attention. None of his generation’s black leaders had understood the lesson better than the SCLC president.

Campaigns in Selma and Chicago

By Christmas of 1964, the plans for “Project Alabama” had been finalised. The aim was to highlight the need for a federal voting-rights law that would give legal weight to the enfranchisement of African-Americans in the South. The protest marches and demonstrations from January to March 1965 demonstrated to Selma that the SCLC leader and his supporters were serious and playing for keeps.

During King’s leadership of the Selma Movement, the city was visited by Malcolm X, who had flown in, addressed a crowd at Brown Chapel, given Coretta a message for King, and then left. Malcolm X was murdered by blacks in New York City two weeks later.

As blacks fought to make the right to vote a reality for themselves and all Americans, King’s arrest in Selma on February 1st 1965, drew national attention as well as the attention of the Johnson White House. 

On March 7, a procession from Selma to Montgomery’s State Capitol building began. King was unable to lead it because he was in Atlanta. State troopers armed with tear gas, billy clubs, bullwhips, and rubber tubing covered in barbed wire confronted the marchers. Using these guns, the troopers targeted the defenceless, unarmed protesters with such ferocity and wrath that 70 blacks were hospitalised and another 70 were treated for injuries by the end of the ordeal. 

The news of the violence shook the nation as it had never been shaken before that night when a film clip from Selma’s “Bloody Sunday” disrupted the broadcast of ABC Television’s Sunday-night movie, Judgment at Nuremberg. The national uproar was deafening, and the public backed the battered demonstrators. King led a second march on March 9 as a wave of public support bolstered his Selma Movement.

A wall of highway patrol officers hindered the march of 1,500 black and white demonstrators from crossing the Pettus Bridge. The demonstrators were told to stop marching. King protested, but it was in vain. At that point, the SCLC leader agreed not to press the issue and avoid a confrontation. Instead, he instructed his followers to kneel and pray before abruptly turning around. Many young Black Power radicals were enraged by King’s decision, which they already saw as too cautious and conservative.

The moral support of these radicals was withdrawn. Nonetheless, the country had been awakened by the events in Selma, which caused widespread outrage and led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On March 25, King and 25,000 of his supporters, escorted by 800 federal troops, completed a four-day, triumphant Selma-to-Montgomery march. The SCLC president had earned the title of “fresh Moses” by blacks, anointed to lead America on a modern-day Exodus to New Canaan.

Martin Luther King’s Assassination and its Aftermath

In the spring of 1968, King’s preparations for the Poor People’s March were thwarted by a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, to express support for a sanitation workers’ strike. The arrival of the SCLC chief in Memphis on April 3 caused a stir in the city and drew a slew of television photographers and camera crews. Two thousand supporters, as well as a huge press and television crew, gathered at Mason Temple that night to hear the twentieth century’s most peaceful warrior deliver a speech. King had been hesitant to appear, but he eventually agreed to do so for the sake of the people who adored him.

His “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” voice, which encapsulated and reaffirmed his life that night, was destined to become famous. To those who knew him at the time, King had given the impression that his life was coming to an end. The next day, at 6:01 p.m., as the SCLC chief stood on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel where he was staying, a loud crack of a high-powered rifle was heard, and a bullet decimated the right side of King’s face with such force that it violently knocked him backwards.

Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson later told The New York Times that his father, Henry Clay Wilson, was the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., not James Earl Ray. Rev. Wilson claimed that his father was the leader of a small group of assassins; that prejudice played no role in the assassination; that Henry Clay Wilson shot King because the former suspected the latter of being involved with the Communist movement; and that James Earl Ray was set up to take the fall for the assassination.

Legacy, Awards, and Achievements

At least fifty honorary degrees were bestowed on King by colleges and universities. On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for leading peaceful opposition to racial prejudice in the United States, making him the (at the time) youngest recipient of the prize. 

The American Jewish Committee awarded him the American Liberties Medallion in 1965 for his “exceptional advancement of the values of human liberty.”

The NAACP presented him with the Spingarn Medal in 1957. He received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story” two years later.

The Margaret Sanger Award was given to King by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1966 for “his valiant opposition to bigotry and his lifetime contribution to the promotion of social justice and human dignity.”

In 1966, King was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow. 

In November 1967, he travelled to the United Kingdom for a 24-hour trip to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University, making him the first African-American to do so.

In 1971, the civil rights activist was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for “Why I Oppose The War In Vietnam,” while being nominated for three Grammy Awards.

President Jimmy Carter bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on King posthumously in 1977.

In 2004, King and his wife received the Congressional Gold Medal.

On August 12, 1919, Vikram Sarabhai was born in Ahmedabad, India. His full name is Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai and he was the son of Ambalal Sarabhai who was a Gujarati industrialist. Dr. Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai was an Indian physicist and an astronomer who started the space research organization and initiated the nuclear power plant in India. Because of his achievement, he is regarded as the Father of the Indian space program. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1966 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1972. Vikram Sarabhai passed away on December 30, 1971, in Kovalam. 

In this article on Vikram Sarabhai biography, we are going to discuss who is Vikram Sarabhai, Vikram Sarabhai education, and the achievements he accomplished throughout his life. 

Vikram Sarabhai Information

Full Name: Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai

Date of Birth: August 12, 1919

Death Date: December 30, 1971

Cause of Death: Cardiac arrest 

Age(at the time of death): 52 

Information about Vikram Sarabhai

Vikram Sarabhai was born on August 12, 1919, in a Gujarati industrial family. His father’s name was Ambalal Sarabhai who was an industrialist, a philanthropist, and the founder of the Sarabhai group of companies. His mother’s name was Sarla Devi and he was the Eighth son of Ambalal Sarabhai. In 1942, Vikram Sarabhai married Mrinalini who was a classical dancer by profession. The couple had two children. His daughter’s name is Mallika, who went on and became an actress and an activist. His son’s name is Kartikeya who is one of the world’s leading environmentalist educators and a dedicated community builder, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 2012. During his lifetime, Vikram Sarabhai practised Jainism and had dedicated his life to building the Indian space program and that is why he is called the Father of the Indian space program. 

Vikram Sarabhai Education

Vikram Sarabhai came from the famous Sarabhai family who was a major industrialist committed to the Indian Independence movement. Vikram Sarabhai attended the Gujarati college in Ahmedabad to complete his higher studies and after doing so he then took admission to the University of Cambridge in England where in 1940, he gave his final honour exam in the Natural Sciences.

Sarbhai returned to Cambridge post world war 2 to pursue his doctorate and in 1945 he submitted a thesis on “Cosmic Ray Investigation in Tropical Latitudes”.

Vikram Sarabhai Achievements 

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai is considered the father of the Indian space program. He was a great institution builder and helped in establishing a large number of institutions in diverse fields. After returning from Cambridge in 1947, he requested his friends and family members to help him in opening a research institution near his home in Ahmedabad, thus at the age of only 28, he founded the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad on November 11, 1947.

The Physical Research Laboratory was the first of many institutions which Vikram Sarabhai created and cultivated. He served in the Physical Research Laboratory from 1966 to 1971. 

Vikram Sarabhai was also very active in his family’s industry and the business which it had. After Independence in 1947, Vikram Sarabhai founded the Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association and then actively looked after it until 1956. Seeing the immediate need for management professionals in the country, Vikram Sarabhai also helped in setting up the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad in 1962. 

The Indian National Committee for  Space Research (INCOSPAR) which was later renamed the Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO) was established by Vikram Sarabhai in 1962.

After the death of the beloved physicist Homi Bhabha in 1966, Vikram Sarabhai was appointed as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India. He is also credited for setting up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in Southern India. Vikram Sarabhai also helped in developing indigenous nuclear technology for defence. 

Vikram Sarabhai Discoveries

Vikram Sarabhai helped in setting up many institutions all around the country and here are some of the well-known institutions established by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai. 

1. In 1947, Vikram Sarabhai established the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmedabad. PRL is a National Research Institute for space and allied sciences. 

2. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad founded on 11 December 1961 is considered to be the best institute of management in the country. 

3. Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), Jaduguda, Bihar was founded in 1967, under the department of atomic energy. 

4. Vikram A. Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC) or the Community science centre was established in 1960 at Ahmedabad. VASCSC is working towards popularizing science and mathematics education among students, teachers, and the public. Its main objective is to improve and find innovative methods of scientific education.

5. Darpan Academy for Performing Arts, Ahmedabad was founded in 1949 along with his wife and now directed by his daughter Mallika Sarabhai for the last three decades. 

6. Faster Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR), Kalpakkam was founded in 1985 and it is the testbed for fast fuel reactors and materials.

7. Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad was founded in 1967 to create a strong indigenous base in electronics. 

8. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram founded on 21 November 1963, is a major space research centre of the ISRO which mainly focuses on rocket and space vehicles for the Indian satellite program. 

9. Space Applications Centre( SAC), Ahmedabad was founded in 1972. The Space Applications Centre has played an important role in realizing the vision and the mission of ISRO. 

10. Variable Energy Cyclotron Project or the VECC is located in Calcutta and was founded in 1972. VECC performs research in basic and applied nuclear sciences and the development of the nuclear particle accelerator. 

Vikram Sarabhai Inventions/Indian Space Research Organization

The establishment of the Indian space research organization by Vikram Sarabhai is considered to be his greatest achievement. When he returned to India after completing his Doctorate from Cambridge University in London in 1947, he was able to convince the newly formed independent Indian government of the importance of a space program for a developing country like India. Dr. Sarabhai was also supported by Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha who is widely regarded as the father of the Indian nuclear science program. He supported Dr. Sarabhai in setting the first rocket launch station in India. At Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram on the coast of the Arabian sea, the first rocket launch centre was established

The inaugural flight was launched on November 21, 1963, with sodium vapour payload after a remarkable effort in setting up the infrastructure, personnel, communication links, and launch pads. 

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was constantly in negotiations with the other leading country’s space organization such as NASA and because of his efforts, the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) was launched during July 1975 – July 1976.

Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was very much interested in science education and founded the Community Science Centre at Ahmedabad in 1956. It is also called Vikram Sarabhai Community Science Centre (VASCSC). He also started a project for the fabrication and the launch of an Indian satellite.

Vikram Sarabhai worked very passionately to ignite India’s first satellite, Aryabhatta but unfortunately, he passed away four years before the launch of the satellite. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1966 and Padma Vibhushan in 1972 to remember and celebrate his life and the legacy he left behind. 

Chandra Shekhar Tiwari who was popularly known as Chandrashekhar Azad was an Indian Revolutionary leader and a Freedom fighter. After the deaths of the founder of Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), Ram Prasad Bismil, and three other prominent party leaders, Roshan Singh, Rajendra Nath Lahiri, and Ashfaqulla Khan, he reorganized the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) under the new name of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). When signing pamphlets as the commander in chief of the HSRA, he often used the alias “Balraj”.

In this biography of Chandrashekhar Azad, we will learn about Chandrashekhar Azad’s early life and career, his revolutionary life, his freedom movement, and Chandra Shekhar Azad’s death.

Chandra Shekhar Azad History about His Early Life, Family and Education

• Chandrashekhar Azad’s birth date is 23 July 1906.

• Chandrasekhar Azad’s birthplace is the present-day Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh. 

• His real name was Chandra Shekhar Tiwari.

• Chandrasekhar Azad’s father’s name was Sitaram Tiwari and his mother’s name was Jagrani Devi.

• He received his early education at Bhavra.

• Later he went to Kashi Vidyapeeth, Banaras for higher education.

• At a young age, Chandrasekhar Azad became involved in revolutionary activities. In 1921 he joined the non-cooperation movement started by Mahatma Gandhi to protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

• He was imprisoned for the first time when he was captured by Britishers at the age of 15 and sentenced to 15 lashes.

• Following this incident, he took the surname Azad and became known as Chandrashekhar Azad.

Revolutionary Activities of Chandra Shekhar Azad

• Mahatma Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation movement in February 1922 as a result of the Chauri-Chaura incident, which was a blow to Azad’s Nationalist sentiments.

• He then determined that a massive approach would be more effective in achieving his goal. 

• During this time he met a lot of young Revolutionary Leaders of India. 

• Ram Prasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Shachindra Nath Bakshi, and Ashfaqulla Khan formed the Hindustan Republican Association in 1923.

• Chandra Shekhar Azad met Manmath Nath Gupta, a young revolutionary who introduced him to Ram Prasad Bismil, the founder of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a revolutionary group.

• He then became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association and began fundraising for it. Robberies of government property are used to collect the rest of the funds.

• He was involved in the Kakori Train Robbery that happened in 1925. In the year 1928, he shot J.P. Saunders to take revenge of Lala Lajpat Rai’s murder in Lahore. Also, he had attempted to blow away India’s Viceroy’s train in 1929.

• The British clamped down on revolutionary movements in the wake of the Kakori train robbery in 1925.

• Prasad, Ashfaqulla Khan, Thakur Roshan Singh, and Rajendra Nath Lahiri were all found guilty and sentenced to death.

• Azad, Keshab Chakravarthy, and Murari Sharma managed to escape being apprehended. 

• Later, with the aid of revolutionaries including Sheo Verma and Mahaveer Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad reorganized the HRA.

• Azad and Bhagat Singh secretly renamed the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) on September 9, 1928 to achieve their primary goal of a socialist-based independent India.

• For a time, Azad made Jhansi the headquarters of his HRA organisation. He practiced shooting in the forest of Orchha, 15 kilometers from Jhansi, and, as an expert marksman, he also taught other members of his tribe.

• For a long time, he lived in a hut near a Hanuman temple on the banks of the Satar River under the alias of Pandit Harishankar Bramhachari.

• He developed a good relationship with the local residents by teaching children from the nearby village of Dharampura.

• He learned to drive a car at the Bundelkhand Motor Garage in Sadar Bazar while living in Jhansi.

• Sadashivrao Malkapurkar, Vishwanath Vaishampayan, and Bhagwan Das Mahaur became close friends with him and joined his revolutionary party.

• Azad was also loyal to the then-congress leaders Raghunath Vinayak Dhulekar and Sitaram Bhaskar Bhagwat.

• He also stayed at Rudra Narayan Singh’s house in Nai Basti and Bhagwat’s house in Nagra for a while.

• Bundelkhand was one of his most devoted supporters. Dewan Kesri Shatrughan Singh, the father of the Bundelkhand freedom movement, aided Azad financially as well as with arms and fighters. Azad paid numerous visits to his fort in Mangrauth.

Azad and Bhagat Singh

The Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) was created by Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee, Bismil, Sachindra Nath Bakshi, Sachindra Nath Sanyal in 1923. After the Kakori train robbery in 1925, the Britishers attempted to suppress revolutionaries. Ashfaqulla Khan, Prasad, Rajendra Nath Lahiri, and Thakur Roshan Singh were sentenced to death for their participation in the revolutionary activities.

Murari Lal Gupta, Chakravarthy, Azad and Keshab evaded capture. With the help of revolutionaries like Mahavir Singh and Shiv Verma, Chandrashekhar Azad reorganized the association.

Azad along with Bhagat Singh and other revolutionaries secretly restructured the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) in 1928 and renamed it the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) on 8-9 September in order to achieve their primary goal of an independent India based on the idea of socialism.

The revolutionary activities of Azad are described by Manmath Nath Gupta, a member of HSRA in his multiple writings. Gupta has also dedicated a section in his book “History of the Indian Revolutionary Movement” to describe the works of Azad. He named this section “Chandrashekhar Azad”. 

Chandra Shekhar Azad Death

• After being surrounded by police and finding no way out after the ammunition ran out, Chandra Shekhar Azad shot himself and died on 27 February 1931 at Alfred Park which is now famously known as Azad Park in Allahabad.

• After Veerbhadra Tiwari, their old companion who later turned traitor told them of his presence in the park, the police surrounded him.

• In the course of defending himself, he was wounded, and Sukhdev Raj killed three police officers and injured others. Sukhdev Raj was able to flee as a result of his actions.

• Without telling the general public, the body was taken to Rasulabad Ghat for cremation. People crowded the park where the incident occurred as soon as word got out. They chanted anti-British slogans and thanked Azad.

Chandrashekhar Azad Quotes

Some of the famous Chandra Shekhar Azad slogans during the Indian Independence movement were as follows:

• Aisi jawaani kisi kaam ki nahi jo apni matra bhoomi ke kaam na aa sake.

• Ab bhi jiska khoon na khaula khoon nahi wo pani hai, jo desh ke kaam na aaye woh bekar jawani hai (If yet your blood does not rage, then it is water that flows in your veins. For what is the flush of youth if it is not of service to the motherland).

• Don’t see others doing better than you, beat your own records every day because success is a fight between you and yourself.

• I believe in a religion that propagates freedom, equality and brotherhood.

• A plane is always safe on the ground, but it is not made for that. Always take some meaningful risks in life to achieve great heights.

In this biography of Chandrashekhar Azad, we got to know about Chandrashekhar Azad’s birthday, his education, career, his Revolutionary movement, and his death.

Chandrashekhar Azad Legacy

Many schools, roads, colleges, and other public institutes in India are named after him. Starting from Jagdish Gautam’s film Chandrashekhar Azad released in 1963 and Manoj Kumar’s film Shaheed in 1965, many films have portrayed the character of Azad. The Bollywood actor Manmohan portrayed Azad in a 1965 film, Sunny Deol played his character in the movie 23 March 1931: Shaheed. Akhilendra Mishra also played Azad in the movie The Legend of Bhagat Singh and Raj Zutshi played Azad in the movie Shaheed-E-Azam. In the film, Rang De Basanti directed and produced by Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, Aamir Khan portrayed Azad.

Jawaharlal Nehru writes in his autobiography that he met Azad a few weeks before his death, discussing the impact of the Gandhi-Irwin pact. Nehru saw the futility of Azad’s methods and was not completely convinced by his peaceful methods.

The lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Azad, and Ashfaq were depicted in the film Rang De Basanti released in 2006 in which Aamir Khan portrayed Azad. The movie described the lives of these young revolutionaries so today’s youth can take inspiration from them.

The 2018 television series Chandrashekhar displayed the journey of Chandrashekhar Azad from a young boy to a revolutionary leader. In this series, Ayaan Zubair portrayed the early life of Azad, Dev Joshi played Azad in his teens and Karan Sharma played adult Azad. 

Conclusion 

Chandrashekhar Azad was known for his organizational abilities, and he was instrumental in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association’s reorganization. In either case, he desired full independence for India. To avenge Lala Lajpat Rai’s murder, he assassinated British Assistant Superintendent of Police John Poyantz Saunders. He became a wanted man as a result of his crimes, but he was able to elude the cops for several years. He was Bhagat Singh’s mentor. One of his friends betrayed him, and the British police seized him. He fought valiantly, but when he saw no other way out, he shot himself to keep his promise of not being captured alive.

Mangal Pandey (born July 19, 1827, in Akbarpur, India – died April 8, 1857, in Barrackpore) was an Indian soldier whose March 29, 1857 attack on British officers was the first major incident of the Indian, or Sepoy Mutiny (this uprising is often referred as the First War of Independence or other similar names in India). In this article, we are going to study about Mangal Pandey in detail.

 

Who was Mangal Pandey?

From here, we’ll study who was Mangal Pandey and what he did. Pandey was born in a town near Faizabad which is now the state of eastern Uttar Pradesh in northern India, though some sources say he was born in a small village near Lalitpur (in present-day southwestern Uttar Pradesh). He came from a landowning high-caste Brahman family with deep Hindu beliefs. Pandey joined the British East India Company’s army in 1849, according to some sources, after being recruited by a brigade that marched past him. He joined the 6th Company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry, which included a large number of Brahmans, as a soldier (sepoy). Pandey was ambitious, and he saw his work as a sepoy as a stepping stone to greater things.

 

Pandey’s professional aspirations, however, clashed with his religious convictions. In the mid-1850s, when he was stationed at the Barrackpore garrison, a new Enfield rifle was introduced into India, which allowed a soldier to load the weapon by biting off the ends of greased cartridges. A rumour circulated that the lubricant used was either cow or pig lard, which Hindus and Muslims, respectively, disliked. The sepoys came to believe that the British had put lard on the cartridges on purpose.

 

The events of March 29, 1857, have been defined in a variety of ways. Pandey tried to provoke his fellow sepoys to rise up against their British officers, assaulted two of them, attempted to shoot himself after being restrained, and was ultimately overwhelmed and arrested, according to the popular agreement. Mangal Pandey was hanged on 8th April 1857 as he was soon tried and sentenced to death. His execution (by hanging) was originally scheduled for April 18, but British authorities pushed it up to April 8 because they feared a large-scale uprising if they waited until then. Later that month, in Meerut, opposition to the use of Enfield cartridges sparked an uprising, which led to the start of the larger insurgency in May.

 

Pandey is remembered in India as a freedom fighter against British rule. In 1984, the Indian government issued a commemorative postage stamp featuring his portrait. In addition, a film and a stage play about his life were released in 2005.

 

Beginning of Mangal Pandey and His Attacks

In 1849, Mangal Pandey enlisted in the Bengal Army. He joined the 5th Company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry as a private soldier (sepoy) in March 1857. Lieutenant Baugh, Adjutant of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry, then stationed at Barrackpore, was told on the afternoon of March 29, 1857, that many men in his regiment were in an agitated state. Furthermore, he was informed that one of them, Mangal Pandey, was pacing in front of the regiment’s guardroom near the parade ground, armed with a loaded musket, urging the men to revolt and threatening to shoot the first European he saw. Pandey had confiscated his guns and ran to the quarter-guard building upon discovering that a detachment of British soldiers was disembarking from a steamer near the cantonment, according to testimony provided at a subsequent inquiry. Pandey had been unsettled by discontent among the sepoys and intoxicated by the narcotic bhang.

 

Baugh quickly armed himself and galloped to the lines on his horse. Pandey took up position behind the station gun in front of the 34th’s quarter-guard, aimed at Baugh, and fired. While he missed Baugh, the bullet hit his horse in the flank, killing both the horse and the rider. Baugh easily disentangled himself, snatched one of his pistols, and charged Pandey, firing. He didn’t make it. Pandey struck Baugh with a talwar (a heavy Indian sword) before the adjutant could draw his sword, stabbed Baugh on the shoulder and leg, and knocked him to the ground. Shaikh Paltu, another sepoy, intervened and attempted to restrain Pandey as he attempted to reload his musket.

 

Before Baugh, a British Sergeant-Major named Hewson had been called to the parade ground by a native general. He had ordered Pandey to be arrested by Jemadar Ishwari Prasad, the Indian officer in charge of the quarter-guard. The jemadar responded by saying that his NCOs had gone for assistance and that he couldn’t take Pandey on his own. Hewson retaliated by ordering Ishwari Prasad to enter the guard with loaded weapons. Meanwhile, Baugh had arrived on the scene, crying, ‘Where is he?’ ‘Where has he gone?’ ‘Ride to the right, sir, for your life,’ Hewson replied to Baugh. ‘The sepoy will open fire!’ Pandey then opened fire.

 

While battling with Lieutenant Baugh, Hewson charged towards Pandey. A blow from Pandey’s musket knocked Hewson to the ground from behind when questioning him. Other sepoys had been called from the barracks by the sound of gunfire, but they remained silent spectators. At this point, Shaikh Paltu, who was attempting to defend the two Englishmen, demanded assistance from the other sepoys. Shaikh Paltu, who was being attacked by sepoys who threw stones and shoes at his back, asked the guard for assistance in holding Pandey, but they threatened to shoot him if he did not let go of the mutineer.

 

The quarter-guard’s sepoys then charged forward and attacked the two prostrate officers. They then threatened Shaikh Paltu and demanded that he release Pandey, whom he had been attempting in vain to keep in custody. Paltu, on the other hand, kept Pandey until Baugh and the sergeant-major were able to rise. Paltu had no choice but to relax his hold now that he was wounded. While being hit with the butt ends of the guards’ muskets, he backed away in one direction and Baugh and Hewson in the other.

 

Meanwhile, the commanding officer, General Hearsey, had received a warning of the incident and galloped to the field with his two officer sons. After taking in the scene, he approached the guards, drew his gun, and ordered them to do their job by apprehending Mangal Pandey. The General threatened to kill the first man who refused to follow orders. The men of the quarter-guard rushed in behind Hearsey and pursued him to Pandey. Pandey then placed the muzzle of the musket against his chest and pulled the trigger with his foot to discharge it. He was bleeding profusely and his regimental jacket was on fire, but he was not mortally wounded.

 

Pandey made a full recovery and was placed on trial less than a week later. When asked whether he had been under the influence of any drugs, he claimed categorically that he had mutinied on his own initiative and that no one had encouraged him. After three Sikh members of the quarter-guard testified that the latter had instructed them not to arrest Pandey, he and Jemadar Ishwari Prasad were sentenced to death by hanging.

 

Aftermath

After a government inquiry, the 34th B.N.I. The regiment was disbanded “with shame” on 6 May as a collective punishment for failing to fulfil their duty in restraining a mutinous soldier and his officer. This came after a six-week cycle in which pleas for leniency in Calcutta were considered. On March 29, Sepoy Shaikh Paltu was promoted to havildar (sergeant) for his actions, but he was assassinated in a remote area of the Barrackpore cantonment shortly before the regiment was disbanded.

 

The 34th B.N.I. had a strong recent record, according to Indian historian Surendra Nath Sen, and the Court of Enquiry had found no proof of a connection with unrest at Berhampore concerning the 19th B.N.I. four weeks ago (see below). However, Mangal Pandey’s conduct, as well as the reluctance of the quarter-armed guards and on-duty sepoys to act, persuaded British military authorities that the regiment as a whole was untrustworthy. Pandey appears to have acted without first gaining the confidence of other sepoys, but the regiment’s antipathy against its British officers had led most of those present to behave as spectators rather than follow orders.

 

Motivation and Story of a New Form of Bullet Cartridge in Detail

Mangal Pandey’s personal motive for his actions remains a mystery. “Come out – the Europeans are here,” he yelled to other sepoys during the incident, “from biting these cartridges we shall become infidels,” and “you sent me out here, why don’t you join me.” He argued at his court-martial that he had been using bhang and opium and was unaware of his actions on March 29.

 

A number of factors led to the Bengal Army’s anxiety and distrust in the months leading up to the Barrackpore incident. The reference to cartridges made by Pandey is generally attributed to a new form of bullet cartridge used in the Enfield P-53 rifle, which was to be introduced in the Bengal Army that year. The cartridge was thought to be greased with animal fat, mainly from cows and pigs, which Hindus and Muslims, respectively, could not eat (the former a holy animal of the Hindus and the latter being abhorrent to Muslims). Before use, the cartridges had to be bitten at one end. Some Indian troops in some regiments believed it was a deliberate act by the British to defile their religions.

 

Colonel S. Wheeler of the 34th B.N.I. was a devout Christian who preached with zeal. The Bible was printed in Urdu and Hindi and circulated among the sepoys by the wife of Captain William Halliday of the 56th B.N.I., creating doubts among them that the British were trying to convert them to Christianity.

 

During the annexation of Oudh in 1856, the 19th and 34th Bengal Native Infantry were posted at Lucknow due to suspected misgovernment by the Nawab. The annexation had detrimental consequences for the Bengal Army’s sepoys (a significant portion of whom came from that princely state). These sepoys had the right to petition the British Resident at Lucknow for justice prior to the annexation, which was a major privilege in the sense of native courts. They lost their unique status as a result of the East India Company’s acts since Oudh no longer existed as a nominally independent political body.

 

The 19th B.N.I. is significant because, on February 26, 1857, it was the regiment tasked with testing the new cartridges. However, new rifles had not been given to them prior to the mutiny, and the cartridges in the regiment’s magazine were as grease-free as they had been for the previous half-century. The cartridges were wrapped in a different colour paper, which raised suspicions. On February 26, the regiment’s non-commissioned officers declined to consider the cartridges. Colonel William Mitchell, the commanding officer, was informed of this information and took it upon himself to persuade the sepoys that the cartridges were identical to those they were used to and that they did not need to bite it. He ended his speech by pleading with the native officers to preserve the regiment’s honour and threatening to court-martial any sepoys who refused to accept the cartridge. The regiment’s sepoys, on the other hand, confiscated their bell of arms the next morning (weapons store). Mitchell’s subsequent accommodative behaviour persuaded the sepoys to return to their barracks.

 

Court of Enquiry

A Court of Enquiry was convened, and after a nearly month-long review, the 19th B.N.I. was recommended to be disbanded. On March 31, the same procedure was followed. The 19th B.N.I. were permitted to keep their uniforms and were given allowances by the government to return to their homes. Colonel Mitchell of the 19th B.N.I. and Colonel Wheeler of Pandey’s 34th B.N.I. were both deemed unfit to command any new regiments raised to replace the disbanded units after the incident on March 29.

 

Consequences

Pandey’s assault and punishment were generally regarded as the start of what became known as the Indian Rebellion of 1857. His actions were well known among his fellow sepoys, and it is thought that this was one of the reasons that sparked the general series of mutinies that erupted over the next few months. Mangal Pandey influenced later figures in the Indian Nationalist Movement, such as V.D. Savarkar, who saw his motivation as one of the earliest manifestations of Indian Nationalism. While a recently published study of events immediately preceding the outbreak suggests that “there is no historical evidence to back up any of these revisionist interpretations,” modern Indian nationalists depict Pandey as the mastermind behind a plot to revolt against the British. Pandee or Pandey became a derogatory word used by British soldiers and civilians when referring to a mutinous sepoy during the uprising that followed. This was a direct derivation of Mangal Pandey’s name.

 

Death

On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Pandey was pacing agitatedly in front of the regiment’s guard room. He appeared ecstatic and was shouting to his fellow sepoys. With a loaded musket, he threatened to shoot the first European he saw that day. “Come out, the Europeans are here,” he yelled to the other soldiers, and “by biting these cartridges, we shall become infidels.” Sergeant-Major James Hewson arrived on the scene after being informed of Pandey’s actions. When he ordered Indian officer Jemadar Ishwari Prasad to arrest Pandey, Prasad refused, arguing that he couldn’t do it alone. Lieutenant Henry Baugh, the Sergeant-Major’s adjutant, appeared on a horse and was shot at by Pandey – this is known as the first gunshot at an Englishman during the Revolt of 1857. Pandey missed the lieutenant and instead struck his horse. Pandey was battling Baugh after this when Hewson approached him. He was knocked unconscious. Throughout the ordeal, no soldiers stepped forward to assist the officers. Just one soldier, Shaikh Paltu, attempted to help the English. Other sepoys assaulted Paltu with stones and shoes for attempting to assist the Englishmen. When the other soldiers threatened to shoot him if he didn’t let go of the mutinous sepoy, Paltu grabbed him. 

 

Meanwhile, General Hearsey, the commanding officer, arrived on the scene with two officers. Pandey attempted to kill himself with his musket after failing to invite all the men to open revolt. However, he just hurt himself and was arrested as a result. Mangal Pandey was put on trial and sentenced to death by hanging in less than a week. During his trial, he said that he mutinied of his own free will and that no other sepoy encouraged him. Since he had told the other soldiers not to arrest Pandey, Jemadar Ishwari Prasad was also sentenced to death by hanging. Pandey was executed on April 8, 1857, and Prasad on April 21, 1857, according to the verdict. The BNI’s entire 34th Regiment was disbanded “with disgrace” on May 6th. This was done after an inquiry found that the soldiers had failed to restrain a mutinous soldier. Sepoy Paltu was promoted to Havildar before the regiment was disbanded, but he was murdered within the cantonment. One of the main preceding events before the 1857 revolution was Mangal Pandey’s act of rebellion.

 

A Gesture of Tribute:

• Every year, July 19 is celebrated as Mangal Pandey Jayanthi and many politicians pay tribute for his contribution towards Indian freedom.

• In 1984, the Government of India released a postage stamp in his memory, and in 2005, a play and a movie were released to pass on his contributions to Indian Independence to future generations. 

 

Interesting Facts about Mangal Pandey

Here are some interesting facts about the martyr:

• He was a devout Hindu who was born into a Brahmin family. Brahmins made up the majority of his 34th Bengal Native Infantry.

• When a new Enfield rifle was introduced in India in the mid-1850s, he had a big disagreement with the company. The rifle’s cartridges were said to be greased with animal fat, especially cow and pig fat. A soldier had to bite the bullets in order to load them into the rifle. Hindus consider cow fat to be sacrilegious, though Muslims consider pig fat to be sacrilegious. As a result of the cartridges’ use, the Indian soldiers revolted against the company, arguing that it violated their religious beliefs.

• Pandey and his fellow sepoys rose up in revolt against the British officers on March 29, 1857, and even tried to shoot them.

• After being arrested, Mangal Pandey was hanged on April 18. The British authorities, fearing a rebellion from other sepoys, had him hanged 10 days earlier, on April 8.

• In 1984, the Indian government issued a postage stamp with his portrait to honour the brave soldier.

• Aamir Khan starred in a film about Mangal Pandey’s life and journey, which was released in 2005.

Conclusion

In a country with 130 crore inhabitants, everyone has the right to enjoy their rights to the fullest. However, as they read their history books, they find that this was not the case just 73 years ago. India’s journey to independence had not been simple. On August 15, 1947, we got freedom as thousands of freedom fighters made the ultimate sacrifice. Although there was a strong desire to be free of colonial rule, only a few people in early British India were willing to publicly oppose White supremacy. In such a situation, it was Mangal Pandey, the man who is often referred to as India’s first freedom fighter, who dared to revolt against the British. He was a key figure in the 1857 Indian Independence War, which ignited the spark that led to India’s independence 90 years after the Sepoy Mutiny.

Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, who was fondly referred to as Tipu Sultan, was the ruler of the Mysore kingdom in south India. Here we will discuss the different aspects of Tipu Sultan’s life including his birth, early life, being the ruler of Mysore, conflicts with the British, and his death. 

Birth and Early Days

Tipu Sultan’s birth date was 20th November in 1750. The birthplace of Tipu Sultan is Devanahalli in the rural district of Bengaluru which is located 33 km to the north of the city of Bengaluru. The real name of Tipu Sultan was Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab and he was named after the saint called Tipu Mastan Aulia in Arcot. Hyder Ali was the father of Tipu Sultan and he was the military officer who served the kingdom of Mysore and then became the de facto ruler of the province in 1761. 

Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa was the mother of Tipu Sultan. Though Hyder Ali was illiterate, he made it a point to ensure that his eldest son got the prince’s education plus early exposure to the military as well as political affairs. Tipu Sultan got an early education in various subjects including Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and Kannada. Besides this, Tipu Sultan also learned Quran, Islamic Jurisprudence, shooting, fencing, and riding from capable teachers who were appointed by Hyder Ali. 

Tipu Sultan was handed over the command to important military and diplomatic missions when he was just 17 years of age. Tipu Sultan was the right-hand man of his father in the wars and this helped Hyder Ali capture the thrones of southern India.

Family of Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan had various wives including Khadija Zaman Begum, Ruqayya Banu, and Sindh Sahiba. Tipu Sultan had 16 sons including Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Hyder Ali Khan Sultan, Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Abdul Khaliq Khan Sultan, Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhi-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan, Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Mu’iz-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan, Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Subhan Khan Sultan, and Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Yasin Khan Sultan amongst others.

Death of Tipu Sultan

In 1799 there were three armies that marched into Mysore, two of those armies came from the United Kingdom and one came from Bombay. The forces belonging to Tipu Sultan were around 30,000 whereas the British East India Company had over 26,000 troops.

It was the betrayal from Tipu Sultan’s brother in law where he collaborated with the British and undermined the walls thereby making the British journey easier. Even though Tipu Sultan was advised by French military advisors to flee, he declined and was killed at Srirangapatna Fort. His body was buried at the Gumbaz, right next to the grave of his father.

More About Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in South India. Tipu Sultan’s full name was Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu.

In this Tipu Sultan biography, we will learn about Tipu Sultan birth, Who was the Tiger of Mysore, Tipu Sultan original name, Tipu Sultan History about his early life and has a ruler of Mysore, his conflicts with the British and surrounding kingdoms, and his death.

Early Days of Tipu Sultan Birth

• Tipu Sultan was born on November 20, 1750.

• Tipu Sultan birthplace is Devanahalli, Bengaluru Rural District, about 33 kilometres north of Bengaluru city.

• Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu was Tipu Sultan’s real name.

• Tipu Sultan was named after the saint Tipu Mastan Aulia of Arcot.

• Tipu Sultan’s father was Hyder Ali who was a military officer in service to the Kingdom of Mysore and became the de facto ruler of Mysore in 1761.

• Tipu Sultan’s mother was Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa who was the daughter of Mir Muin-ud-Din, the governor of the fort of Kadapa.

• Hyder Ali, who was illiterate, made a point of providing his eldest son with a prince’s education and early exposure to military and political affairs.

• Tipu Sultan was given an early education in subjects such as Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Kannada, Quran, Islamic jurisprudence, riding, shooting, and fencing by able teachers who were appointed by Hyder Ali.

• Tipu Sultan was granted independent command of important diplomatic and military missions when he was 17 years old.

• Tipu Sultan served as his father’s right hand in the wars that propelled Hyder Ali to the throne of southern India.

Tipu Sultan Family

• Tipu Sultan had several wives. Ruqayya Banu, Khadija Zaman Begum, Sindh Sahiba were a few of the wives names recorded.

• Tipu Sultan had 16 Sons 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Hyder Ali Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Abdul Khaliq Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhi-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Mu’izz-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Mi’raj-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Mu’in-ud-din Ali Khan Sultan

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Yasin Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Subhan Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Shukrullah Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Sarwar-ud-din Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Nizam-ud-din Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Munir-ud-din Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sir Sayyid walShareef Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib, KCSI

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Ghulam Ahmad Khan Sultan 

• Shahzada Sayyid walShareef Hashmath Ali Khan Sultan

First Anglo-Mysore War

• Tipu Sultan fought alongside his father against the British in the First Anglo-Mysore War in 1766 when he was 15 years old.

• Tipu Sultan received military training from French officers who worked for his father.

• At the age of 16, he led a cavalry corps in the conquest of Carnatic in 1767.

• He also made a name for himself during the First Anglo-Maratha War, which lasted from 1775 to 1779.

Second Anglo-Mysore War

• The British seized the French-controlled port of Mahe in 1779, which Tipu had protected by supplying troops for its defence.

• Hyder Ali launched an invasion of the Carnatic in response, with the aim of driving the British out of Madras.

• Hyder Ali sent Tipu Sultan with 10,000 men and 18 guns to intercept Colonel Baillie on his way to join Sir Hector Munro during this campaign in September 1780. Tipu decisively beat Baillie in the Battle of Pollilur.

• On February 18, 1782, Tipu Sultan defeated Colonel Braithwaite at Annagudi, near Tanjore.

• Tipu Sultan successfully reclaimed Chittur from the British in December 1781.

• Tipu Sultan recognised the British as a new form of threat to India.

• By the time Hyder Ali died on December 6, 1782, Tipu Sultan had acquired sufficient military experience.

• The Treaty of Mangalore, signed in 1784, put an end to the Second Mysore War.

Ruler of Mysore Tipu Sultan

• Following the death of Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan was crowned King of Mysore on Sunday, December 22, 1782, in a simple coronation ceremony.

• He then worked to counter the British advance by forming alliances with the Marathas and Mughals. 

Disputes with the Maratha Confederacy

• The Maratha Empire regained much of the Indian subcontinent under its new Peshwa Madhavrao I, twice defeating Tipu’s father, who was forced to recognise the Maratha Empire as the supreme power in 1764 and 1767.

• In 1767, the Maratha Peshwa Madhavrao defeated both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan and marched into Mysore’s capital, Srirangapatna.

• Hyder Ali acknowledged Madhavrao’s authority and was given the title of Nawab of Mysore.

• However, the Ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan decided to get out of the Maratha’s treaty, so he attempted to seize some Maratha forts in Southern India that had been captured by the Marathas during the previous war.

• This pitted Tipu Sultan against the Marathas, resulting in the Maratha–Mysore War, which lasted from 1785 to 1787.

• In March 1787, the Treaty of Gajendragad was signed, in which Tipu returned all of the territories conquered by Hyder Ali to the Maratha Empire.

• Tipu Sultan agreed to pay the Maratha Empire four years worth of tribute that his father, Hyder Ali, had agreed to pay.

Third Anglo-Mysore War

• On 28th December 1789, Tipu Sultan gathered troops in Coimbatore and launched an assault on Travancore’s lines, knowing that Travancore was a British East India Company ally (according to the Treaty of Mangalore).

• Lord Cornwallis responded by mobilising company and British military powers, as well as forming alliances with the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad, in order to defeat Tipu.

• The company forces advanced in 1790, capturing a large portion of the Coimbatore district. Tipu launched a counter-offensive, retaking most of the territory, though the British retained control of Coimbatore.

• In 1791, his adversaries made gains on all fronts, with Cornwallis’ main British force capturing Bengaluru and threatening Srirangapatna.

• Tipu Sultan harassed British supply and communication lines and implemented a scorched earth strategy of refusing the invaders local resources.

• Cornwallis was successful in this last attempt, as a shortage of provisions forced him to retreat to Bengaluru rather than attempt a siege of Srirangapatna.

• Tipu sent forces to Coimbatore after the withdrawal, which they retook after a long siege.

• Tipu began negotiations for surrender terms after about two weeks of siege.

• He was forced to cede half of his territory to the allies and deliver two of his sons as hostages in the subsequent treaty before he paid the British the three crores and thirty lakhs rupees set aside as war indemnity for the campaign against him. He paid the money in two installments and returned to Madras with his sons.

Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and Death of Tipu Sultan

• In 1799, three armies marched into Mysore: one from Bombay and two from the United Kingdom, one of which included Arthur Wellesley. During the Fourth Mysore War, they besieged Srirangapatna, the capital.

• The British East India Company had over 26,000 troops, while Tipu Sultan’s forces numbered 30,000.

• Tipu Sultan’s brother-in-law’s betrayal in collaborating with the British and undermining the walls to make the British’s journey easier.

• When the British broke through the city walls, Tipu Sultan was advised to flee through hidden passages by French military advisors, but he declined.

• Tipu Sultan was killed at the Srirangapatna Fort. He was buried at the Gumbaz, next to his father’s grave.

Tipu Sultans Administration 

In this section let us look into some of the administrative reforms passed by Tipu Sultan for the betterment of the Mysore state.

• Tipu was able to conquer all of the southern petty kingdoms. In addition, he was one of the few Indian rulers to beat British armies.

• Mysore’s use of rocketry had been expanded by Tipu Sultan’s father, who had made important innovations in both the rockets themselves and the military logistics of their use. In his army, he deployed up to 1,200 specialised troops to control rocket launchers. During the third and fourth Anglo-Mysore Wars, these rockets were used.

• The navy led by Tipu Sultan was made of 20 battleships of 72 cannons and 20 frigates of 62 cannons.

• In the late 18th century, Tipu Sultan was at the pinnacle of Mysore’s economic strength. He embarked on an ambitious economic development programme with his father, Hyder Ali, with the aim of increasing Mysore’s wealth and revenue.

• With highly productive agriculture and textile manufacturing, Mysore overtook Bengal Subah as India’s dominant economic force during his reign. 

• In the late 18th century, Mysore had some of the highest real incomes and living standards in the world, even higher than Britain, thanks to Tipu Sultan. At this time, Mysore’s average income was five times that of the subsistence level.

• On the Kaveri river, Tipu Sultan laid the base for the Kannambadi dam (Krishna Raja Sagara or KRS dam).

• During Tipu Sultan’s reign, a new land revenue system was developed which initiated the growth of the Mysore silk industry for the first time.

• Tipu Sultan was a moral administrator. Liquor use and prostitution were strictly banned during his rule. Psychedelics, such as Cannabis, were also banned from use and cultivation.

• Tippu Sultan introduced a new coinage system and calendar.

Religious Policies of Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan was a very controversial figure in Indian History because of his religious beliefs and policies. In this section let us look into some of the religious policies of Tipu Sultan.

• Tipu Sultan was a devout Muslim who performed regular prayers and paid particular attention to mosques in the city. Some of his policies have sparked debate as a Muslim ruler in a predominantly Hindu country.

• In India, his religious legacy has sparked heated debate, with some groups hailing him as a great warrior for the faith or Ghazi for both religious and political reasons.

• Many sources cite Tipu’s appointment of Hindu officers in his administration, as well as his land grants and endowments to Hindu temples, as proof of his religious tolerance.

• Various accounts, on the other hand, depict Hindu and Christian massacres, incarceration, and forced conversion, the destruction of churches and temples, and the crackdown on Muslims, which are often cited as proof of his prejudice.

After Reading Tipu Sultans Biography We May Get a Question:

Who is the Tiger of Mysore and why was he called so?

Tipu Sultan, also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was a powerful ruler in Mysore. Tipu Sultan was a fearsome warrior king who moved so quickly that the enemy thought he was fighting on many fronts at the same time. Tiger was Tipu Sultan’s state symbol, and he used tiger motifs on arms and uniforms, as well as decorating palaces with tiger emblems. 

Also, one incident with Tiger gave him this name. Tipu Sultan’s gun jammed and his knife dropped to the ground when he attempted to kill the Tiger. When the Tiger jumped on him and was about to maul him, Tipu took out his knife and killed the tiger, earning him the moniker “Tiger of Mysore.” 

In this Tipu Sultan biography, we have talked about the life history of tipu Sultan, his battles with the British empire, his rule of South India and we got to know Who is Tiger of Mysore.

Conclusion

During his lifetime, Tipu Sultan was a legend, and he is still known as an enlightened ruler in India. He was a fierce and successful opponent of British rule in southern India during the late eighteenth century, posing a serious threat to the East India Company. 

So it is important for students to study the Tipu Sultan history to understand his ideologies, administrative skills and never give up attitude on the battlefield.

Charles Robert Darwin was a British naturalist best known for developing the theory of evolution through natural selection. Darwin, known as the “Father of Evolutionary Theory,” made two significant contributions to the concept of evolution. 

First, Darwin gathered considerable evidence in support of the theory of descent with the change, a kinematic theory that deals with non-causal relationships between things—in other words, it deals with the evolution trend. 

Second, Darwin suggested the theory of natural selection as a mechanism for the observed pattern. This is a complex theory that deals with the evolution process and includes processes and causal relationships.

Charles Darwin Information

Charles Darwin date of birth- February 12, 1809

Charles Darwin Birthplace- The Mount, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England

Charles Darwin death date- April 19, 1882

Charles Darwin Place of Death- Down House, Downe, Kent, England

Resting Place- Westminster Abbey

Spouse- Emma Wedgwood ​(m. 1839)​

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About Charles Darwin Biography

Who is Charles Darwin? Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, at The Mount House, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was the fifth of Robert Darwin’s six children, and the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, both of whom came from the influential Darwin–Wedgwood family, which supported the Unitarian Church. When he was eight years old, his mother died. The next year, he enrolled at the nearby Shrewsbury School as a “boarder.”

Darwin enrolled at Edinburgh University to study medicine in 1825, but his disgust with the cruelty of surgery caused him to abandon his studies. He studied taxidermy with a liberated black slave from South America, and he was enthralled by his stories about the South American rainforest. In his second year, Darwin became active in naturalist student societies. Robert Edmund Grant, who vigorously pursued the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles’ grandfather Erasmus about evolution through acquired characteristics, became an ardent follower of Charles.

In March 1827, Darwin gave a presentation to the Plinian Society about his discovery that black spores often found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech. He also sat in on Robert Jameson’s natural history class, learning about stratigraphic geology and assisting with work on the collections of Edinburgh University’s Museum, which was at the time one of Europe’s largest.

His father, dissatisfied that his younger son would not pursue a career as a physician, enrolled him in a Bachelor of Arts course at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, in order to prepare him as a clergyman. This was a wise career choice at a time when Anglicans were well compensated and most naturalists in England were clergymen who saw it as part of their responsibilities to learn about God’s existence. 

Darwin preferred riding and shooting to studying at Cambridge. He became engrossed in the new craze for competitive beetle collecting with his cousin William Darwin Fox, and Fox introduced him to the Reverend John Stevens Henslow, professor of botany, for expert advice on beetles. Darwin then enrolled in Henslow’s natural history class, where he quickly rose to the position of “favourite student” and was dubbed “the guy who walks with Henslow.”

When exams were approaching, he concentrated on his studies and sought private tutoring from Henslow, who specialised in math and theology. William Paley’s writings, which contained the argument of divine design in nature, enthralled Darwin in particular. Darwin did well in theology in his final exams in January 1831, and after passing the classics, mathematics, and physics, he finished tenth out of 178 students.

Charles Darwin Information About Journey on the Beagle

The HMS Beagle survey took five years, with two-thirds of that time spent on land by Darwin. He got up close and personal with a wide range of geological features, fossils, and living species, as well as a diverse group of native and colonial people. He meticulously gathered an immense number of specimens, many of which were unknown to science, establishing his reputation as a naturalist and making him one of the forerunners of ecology. His meticulous notes served as the foundation for his subsequent work, providing social, political, and anthropological insights into the places he visited.

Darwin read Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which explained features as the result of gradual processes over long periods of time, and wrote home that he was seeing landforms “as if he had the eyes of Lyell”: stepped plains of shingle and seashells in Patagonia seemed to be raised beaches; an earthquake raised the land in Chile; and he collected high in the Andes When the Beagle arrived in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, he confirmed his hypothesis that coral atolls form on sinking volcanic mountains.

All About Charles Darwin Career and Development of Theory

While Darwin was still on the ship, Henslow carefully cultivated his former pupil’s reputation by providing access to fossil fossils and written copies of Darwin’s geological writings to a small group of naturalists. Darwin was a star in scientific circles when the Beagle returned on October 2, 1836. His father arranged investments so that Darwin could become a self-funded gentleman scientist while he visited his home in Shrewsbury. Darwin went to London institutions to find the best naturalists available to classify his other collections for timely publication after visiting Cambridge and persuading Henslow to focus on botanical descriptions of modern plants he had collected.

On October 29, an ecstatic Charles Lyell met Darwin and introduced him to the young anatomist Richard Owen. After working on Darwin’s collection of fossil bones at his Royal College of Surgeons, Owen surprised everyone when he revealed that some of the bones were from enormous extinct rodents and sloths. Darwin’s credibility was strengthened as a result of this.

Darwin gave his first paper to the Geological Society of London on January 4, 1837, with Lyell’s enthusiastic support, arguing that the South American landmass was steadily increasing. Darwin delivered his mammal and bird specimens to the Zoological Society on the same day. 

Lyell used his presidential address to the Geographical Society on February 17, 1837, to present Owen’s findings on Darwin’s fossils up to that point, highlighting the inference that extinct species were similar to current species in the same locality. Darwin was elected to the Society’s Council at the same meeting.

Another project he began was to have the expert reports on his collection published as a multivolume Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, for which Henslow used his connections to secure a £1,000 treasury grant. Around the 20th of June, Darwin completed his Journal (when King William IV died and the Victorian Era began).

Darwin started his secret “B” notebook on transmutation in mid-July and proposed the theory that each island in the Galápagos Archipelago had its own kind of tortoise, which had evolved from a single tortoise species and adapted to life on the various islands in different ways.

Charles Darwin Scientist and Author

Darwin was now a well-known geologist among the scientific elite of clerical naturalists, with a comfortable lifestyle. He had a lot of work to do, including writing up his observations and hypotheses and overseeing the preparation of a multivolume Zoology to classify his specimens. He was convinced of his theory of evolution, but he had long been aware that species transmutation was synonymous with heresy, as well as radical revolutionary agitators in Britain trying to overthrow society; therefore, publication risked ruining his reputation.

Darwin’s Journal and Remarks was a huge success when FitzRoy’s account was published in May 1839. Later that year, it was released on its own, and it became a bestseller recognised as The Voyage of the Beagle today. As Emma’s first pregnancy advanced in December 1839, Darwin became increasingly ill and achieved nothing the following year.

Darwin attempted to explain his theory to close friends, but they were uninterested and believed that selection needed the intervention of a divine selector. By 1844, Darwin had written a 240-page “Essay” that built on his early theories on natural selection, and he had written a brief “Pencil Sketch” of his theory. If Darwin died before finishing the main work on the subject, he left Emma strict orders to only publish the 1842 and 1844 preliminary sketches of his theory. In 1846, Darwin finished his third Geological journal. Darwin began a comprehensive study of barnacles with the help of his friend, the young botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. Hooker read the “Essay” in 1847 and sent Darwin notes that gave him the calm critical input he wanted.

About Charles Darwin Marriage and Children

Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood (May 2, 1808 – October 7, 1896) at Maer on January 29, 1839, in an Anglican ceremony that was also suitable for Unitarians.

After living in Gower Street, London, the couple moved to Down House in Downe on September 17, 1842. Three of the Darwins’ ten children died as infants. Many of these people, as well as their descendants, will go on to become famous.

Several of their children suffered sickness or weaknesses, and Charles Darwin’s concern that this could be due to the closeness of his and Emma’s lineage was reflected in his writings on the ill effects of inbreeding and the advantages of the crossing.

Charles Darwin Famous Theory: Announcement and Publication

Lyell read a paper on the introduction of species by Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist working in Borneo, in the spring of 1856, and encouraged Darwin to publish his theory to set precedent. Despite his illness, Darwin persisted in collecting specimens and knowledge from naturalists such as Wallace and Asa Gray. Darwin received a letter from Wallace in December 1857, asking if he would include a chapter on human origins in his Natural Selection manuscript.

On June 18, 1858, he received a paper from Wallace outlining the evolutionary process, along with instructions to forward it to Lyell. Though Wallace had not requested publication, Darwin did so, surprised that he had been “forestalled,” and offered to give it to any journal Wallace wanted. Darwin entrusted the matter to Lyell, who suggested that Wallace’s manuscript and a few of Darwin’s shorter works be read at an upcoming Linnean Society of London meeting and then published. Two of Darwin’s children became ill during these debates, and one of them, Charles Waring, died, so Darwin retired and left it to Lyell.

Darwin battled illness for the next 13 months in order to complete the abstract of his “major book on species.” Darwin completed his abstract after receiving relentless support from his scientific colleagues, and Lyell arranged for it to be published by John Murray. On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection was chosen as the title, and when the book went on sale to the trade on November 22, 1859, the stock of 1,250 copies was quickly depleted.

Darwin avoided using the terms “evolution” or “evolve” at the time because “evolutionism” meant creation without divine interference, but the book concludes with the statement that “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” The book only made a passing reference to the possibility that humans will evolve in the same way as other species. “Light will be shed on the roots of man and his origins,” Darwin wrote, deliberately understated.