Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 16

The correct answer is A, the Lahore session of 1929. Presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore session of December 1929 passed the resolution of Purna Swaraj or complete independence, unfurled the tricolour on the bank of the Ravi and called on the country to observe the twenty sixth of January 1930 as Independence Day. Option B, the Karachi session of 1931, is remembered for the resolution on fundamental rights and the national economic programme, and for endorsing the Gandhi Irwin Pact. Option C, the Nagpur session of 1920, adopted the Non Cooperation Movement and changed the creed of the Congress to swaraj by peaceful means, but it did not define swaraj as complete independence. Option D, the Lucknow session of 1916, is the session of the Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the Muslim League and of the reunion of the moderates and the extremists.

The correct answer is D, C A B D. Taking the four in the order they appear in history: Wood's Despatch came first, in 1854, and is called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a graded system of schools and universities. The Hunter Commission, also known as the Indian Education Commission, followed in 1882 under W. W. Hunter and reported mainly on primary and secondary education. The Saddler Commission, or Calcutta University Commission, sat in 1917 and 1919 and reviewed university education. The Sargent Plan, prepared by the Central Advisory Board of Education in 1944, was the last of the four and proposed universal free elementary education within forty years. Options A and C both place the Hunter Commission first, which is wrong because Wood's Despatch of 1854 precedes it, and option B puts the Saddler Commission before the Hunter Commission, reversing 1882 and 1917.

The correct answer is A, 1889. The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889, a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and it served as the entrance arch of the World's Fair held that year to mark the centenary of the French Revolution. Designed by Gustave Eiffel's firm, it was meant to stand for twenty years and remained the tallest structure in the world for about four decades. B is wrong because 1900 was another Paris exposition year but the tower was already eleven years old by then. C is wrong because 1886 is the year the Statue of Liberty, also linked to Gustave Eiffel through its internal framework, was dedicated in New York, which is why the year is offered here. D is wrong because 1913 falls just before the First World War and carries no connection with the tower.

The correct answer is A, the second of June 2014. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 carved Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh and named the second of June 2014 as the appointed day; Hyderabad was to serve as the common capital of both states for a period fixed by the Act. Telangana thus became the twenty-ninth state at the time of its creation, and it remains the most recent state to be formed. Option B is wrong because the first of November 2000 is the foundation day of Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Option C is wrong because the ninth of November 2000 is the foundation day of Uttarakhand, then named Uttaranchal, carved out of Uttar Pradesh. Option D is wrong because the thirty-first of October 2019 is the date on which the former state of Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories, a change that created no new state at all. Note the distinction between a new state and a new union territory.

The correct answer is B, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was born on 31 October 1875 and is remembered as the Iron Man of India for integrating the princely states after independence. The day was declared in 2014 and is marked by the Run for Unity; the Statue of Unity at Kevadia in Gujarat, 182 metres tall and the tallest statue in the world when it was built, was unveiled on this date in 2018. Option A is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November, observed as Children's Day. Option C is wrong because Lal Bahadur Shastri was born on 2 October, the same date as Mahatma Gandhi. Option D is wrong because Dr B. R. Ambedkar was born on 14 April, observed as Ambedkar Jayanti. Note that 31 October is also the death anniversary of Indira Gandhi, which papers sometimes use as a trap.

The correct answer is B, Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was born on 22 December 1887 at Erode in the Madras Presidency, worked on number theory, infinite series and continued fractions, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at a very young age. The day was declared in 2012, on the hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth. Option A is wrong because Aryabhata was an astronomer and mathematician of the fifth century, honoured instead in the name of India's first satellite. Option C is wrong because Brahmagupta belongs to the seventh century and is remembered for treating zero as a number. Option D is wrong because Bhaskara II, the author of Lilavati, belongs to the twelfth century. No national day is kept for these three.

The correct answer is C, Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo in present-day Belgium by the allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian commander Blucher. The defeat ended the Hundred Days that followed his return from exile on Elba, and he was sent to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821; the phrase to meet one's Waterloo comes from this battle. A is wrong because at Ligny, fought two days before Waterloo, Napoleon actually beat the Prussians. B is wrong because Jena in 1806 was one of his greatest victories, in which Prussia was crushed. D is wrong because Arcole in 1796 was an early victory in his Italian campaign that helped make his reputation.

The correct answer is A, 26 July. The Kargil conflict of 1999 ended on this day with the recapture of the heights held in the Dras, Batalik and Kargil sectors, and the day is observed in memory of the soldiers who died in that campaign. Option B is wrong because 16 December is Vijay Diwas, the anniversary of the victory of 1971 and of the surrender at Dhaka, and the two victory days are the commonest pair of distractors in this topic. Option C is wrong because 27 October is Infantry Day, for the airlift of troops to Srinagar in 1947. Option D is wrong because 21 October is Police Commemoration Day. Attach each date to its war and the confusion between 1971 and 1999 disappears.

The correct answer is A, 25 December, the birth anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was born on 25 December 1924 and served three terms as Prime Minister. The Government began observing the day in 2014 to stress accountability and the delivery of services in administration. Option B is wrong because 26 November is Constitution Day, which marks the adoption of the Constitution in 1949 and was declared the following year, in 2015. Option C is wrong because 31 October is Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, declared in the same year as Good Governance Day. Option D is wrong because 23 January is Parakram Diwas, for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, declared much later in 2021. Note that 25 December is also the birth anniversary of Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University.

The correct answer is B, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was born on 31 October 1875. The Central Vigilance Commission arranges the week around that date, and it opens with an integrity pledge taken in government offices and public sector undertakings; the same day is also observed as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, the national unity day. Option A is wrong because the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, 2 October, is Gandhi Jayanti and the International Day of Non-Violence. Option C is wrong because the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, 14 November, is Children's Day. Option D is wrong because the birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, 14 April, is Ambedkar Jayanti, which is also the day Fire Service Week begins. A useful cue is that the vigilance week is the only one of these tied to a birth anniversary that is itself a national observance, Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, so the two facts reinforce each other.

The correct answer is B, 1799. Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in November 1799 in the coup that overthrew the Directory, and he became First Consul of France, which is the point at which the French Revolution is usually said to have ended; he crowned himself emperor five years later, in 1804. A is wrong because 1797 is the year of the Treaty of Campo Formio, which ended his first Italian campaign but gave him no political office in Paris. C is wrong because by 1800 he was already in power and fought the battle of Marengo as First Consul. D is wrong because in 1798 he was away in Egypt, where his fleet was destroyed by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and he returned from that campaign only in 1799. The chain worth keeping is 1789 revolution, 1799 Napoleon in power, 1804 emperor, 1815 Waterloo.

The correct answer is C, 2016. The year 2016 was the International Year of Pulses, led by the Food and Agriculture Organization, and it drew attention to crops such as gram, arhar, moong, urad and masoor, which give protein cheaply and fix nitrogen in the soil. The year matters to India, the largest producer as well as the largest consumer of pulses in the world. Option A is wrong because 2014 was the International Year of Family Farming and of Crystallography. Option B is wrong because 2015 was the International Year of Soils and of Light and Light-based Technologies. Option D is wrong because no international year of a crop was declared for 2018, which is remembered instead for the beginning of the water decade running to 2028. Pair pulses in 2016 with millets in 2023.

The correct answer is B, 2014. The proposal was placed before the General Assembly in an address on 27 September 2014, and the Assembly adopted the resolution on 11 December 2014 with a record number of co-sponsoring countries. Option A is wrong because nothing on yoga was before the Assembly in 2013. Option C is the standard trap, because 2015 is the year of the first observance, held on 21 June 2015 with a mass demonstration at Rajpath in New Delhi; the resolution came the previous December. Option D is wrong because by 2016 the day was already in its second year. The date 21 June was chosen because it is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, a day of significance in many traditions. Separate the year of the resolution from the year of the first observance in your notes.

The correct answer is A, 31 May. The World Health Organization began this observance in 1988 to draw attention to the health harm caused by tobacco in every form and to the industry's marketing, and each year it carries a theme, often aimed at young people. Option B is wrong because 31 March carries no such observance and is put there only as a near miss. Option C is wrong because 26 June is the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which covers narcotic drugs rather than tobacco. Option D is wrong because 10 October is World Mental Health Day, begun by the World Federation for Mental Health in 1992. Two other tobacco-related facts sometimes asked are that India observes Anti-Leprosy Day on 30 January and National Cancer Awareness Day on 7 November.

The correct answer is B, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles and formally ended the First World War between Germany and the Allied powers. It placed the guilt for the war on Germany, imposed heavy reparations, cut its territory and limited its army, and the resentment it created is treated by historians as one cause of the Second World War. A is wrong because 1921 saw separate agreements between the United States and Germany, as the American Senate had refused to ratify Versailles. C is wrong because 1933 is the year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, a consequence of the post-war settlement rather than part of it. D is wrong because 1940 falls in the middle of the Second World War, twenty-one years after the treaty.

The correct answer is A, 16 October. The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded on 16 October 1945 at Quebec in Canada, and the day has been observed in its memory since 1981; the FAO has its headquarters at Rome and leads the campaign every year. Option B, 24 October, is United Nations Day, the anniversary of the Charter coming into force in the same year, 1945, which is what makes the two dates easy to confuse. Option C, 1 December, is World AIDS Day, observed since 1988 under the World Health Organization. Option D, 5 October, is World Teachers’ Day, led by UNESCO since 1994. Notice that October carries three observances in this chapter — the second, the sixteenth and the twenty-fourth — and learn them as a set.

The correct answer is B, the adoption of the Constitution by the Constituent Assembly, which happened on 26 November 1949. The day was declared Constitution Day in 2015, during the 125th birth anniversary year of Dr B. R. Ambedkar; the same date had earlier been observed as National Law Day. Option A is wrong and is the commonest error on this question, because the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, which is Republic Day. Option C is wrong because the Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, under Dr Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman, with Dr Rajendra Prasad elected president two days later. Option D is wrong because India had no President in November 1949; Dr Rajendra Prasad took that office only in January 1950. Hold the three dates together: 9 December 1946, 26 November 1949 and 26 January 1950.

The correct answer is A, The fission bomb dropped at Hiroshima. Little Boy was the code name of the uranium fission bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. Three days later, on 9 August, a plutonium bomb named Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered shortly afterwards. B is wrong because the bomb dropped at Nagasaki was Fat Man, and it was a fission bomb as well, not a fusion or hydrogen bomb, which came only in the 1950s. C is wrong because the first nuclear device tested by the United States was code-named Trinity and was exploded in New Mexico in July 1945. D is wrong because North Korea's first nuclear test came decades later and has no connection with these code names.

The correct answer is B, Subhas Chandra Bose, born at Cuttack on 23 January 1897. The day was declared in 2021, the year of his 125th birth anniversary, and is named Parakram Diwas, the day of valour, after the Azad Hind Fauj he led. Option A is wrong because Bhagat Singh was born on 28 September and was executed on 23 March 1931, a date observed as Shaheed Diwas along with Sukhdev and Rajguru. Option C is wrong because Chandra Shekhar Azad was born on 23 July and died at Alfred Park in Allahabad in February 1931. Option D is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai was born on 28 January and died in November 1928 after the lathi charge during the Simon Commission protest. Bose gave the slogan Jai Hind and set up the Provisional Government of Free India at Singapore in 1943.

The correct answer is D, 1929. The Great Depression began with the crash of the New York stock market in October 1929, remembered through Black Thursday and Black Tuesday of that month. Banks failed, industrial output collapsed and unemployment rose across the United States and Europe through the early 1930s; the recovery in America came with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal from 1933. A is wrong because 1911 is associated with the Chinese Revolution, not with any economic collapse. B is wrong because 1931 falls in the depth of the Depression but is two years after it began, and this is the option that catches candidates who remember only that the worst years were in the early thirties. C is wrong because 1914 is the year the First World War started.