Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 17

The correct answer is B, 14 July 1789. A Paris crowd attacked and captured the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that stood for the arbitrary power of the Bourbon monarchy, on 14 July 1789, and that day is taken as the start of the French Revolution; France keeps it as its national day, known as Bastille Day. A is wrong because 4 July 1776 is the date of the American Declaration of Independence, which came thirteen years earlier and is the national day of the United States. C is wrong because 26 August 1789 is the date of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, an important document of the same revolution but six weeks after it began. D is wrong because 18 June 1815 is the Battle of Waterloo, which closed the Napoleonic era twenty-six years later.

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 A, Birsa Munda, the tribal leader of the Chhotanagpur region who was born on 15 November 1875 and who led the Ulgulan, or Great Tumult, against colonial land settlement and forced labour; his followers called him Dharti Aba, the father of the earth. The day was approved in 2021 as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas, the day of tribal pride. Option B is wrong because Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu led the Santhal rebellion of 1855 and 1856, remembered separately as Hul Diwas on 30 June. Option C is wrong because Tilka Manjhi led an even earlier Santhal resistance in the 1780s. Option D is wrong because Rani Gaidinliu was the Naga spiritual and political leader of the Heraka movement in Manipur and Nagaland, honoured on her own birth anniversary. Note that 15 November is also the day Jharkhand was created, in 2000.

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 C, 24 October 1945. The United Nations Charter came into force on 24 October 1945 once it had been ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of the other signatories, and that date is observed every year as United Nations Day. B is wrong, and is the main trap, because 26 June 1945 is the day the Charter was signed at San Francisco; signing and coming into force are four months apart. A is wrong because 10 January 1920 is the date the League of Nations, the predecessor body created after the First World War, came into being. D is wrong because 1 January 1942 is the date of the Declaration by United Nations, a wartime statement by twenty-six Allied countries in which the name was first used, but no organisation existed then.

The correct answer is A, Birsa Munda. Jharkhand was created by the Bihar Reorganisation Act of 2000, and the fifteenth of November was deliberately named as the appointed day because it is the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, the tribal leader of the Munda community who led the Ulgulan, or great tumult, against colonial land policy and missionary pressure at the end of the nineteenth century, and who died in Ranchi jail while still a young man. Option B is wrong because Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, was born on the third of December and came from Bihar, not from the Jharkhand region. Option C is wrong because Sidhu Murmu, who with his brother Kanhu led the Santhal rebellion of 1855, is remembered on a different date, Hul Diwas in June. Option D is wrong because Tantia Bhil was a rebel of the Nimar region of central India. Learn this pair together with the state's Act of creation.

The correct answer is B, the younger two sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh, Sahibzada Zorawar Singh and Sahibzada Fateh Singh, who were put to death at Sirhind in 1705 after refusing to give up their faith. The day was announced in 2022 on the Prakash Parv of Guru Gobind Singh and named Veer Bal Diwas, the day of the brave children. Option A is wrong because the elder two sahibzadas, Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh, fell in the battle of Chamkaur, a separate event, and the day is named for the younger pair. Option C is wrong because Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru and the grandfather of the sahibzadas, was executed at Delhi in 1675, remembered on his own martyrdom day. Option D is wrong because Banda Singh Bahadur was the military commander who avenged Sirhind and was killed in 1716.

The correct answer is D, Nagpur. The annual session of the Indian National Congress in December 1920 met at Nagpur under the presidency of C. Vijayaraghavachariar, and it confirmed the programme of non cooperation that a special session at Calcutta had approved in September of that year. The Nagpur session also changed the creed of the Congress from constitutional means to attaining swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means, and reorganised the party on linguistic provinces with a working committee. Option A, Thiruvananthapuram, never hosted a session of this period. Option B, Mumbai, then Bombay, hosted the first session of 1885 and the Quit India session of August 1942, not the 1920 session. Option C, Tripura, is a confusion with Tripuri in the Central Provinces, where the session of 1939 was held and where the Subhash Chandra Bose crisis came to a head.

The correct answer is C, Yuri Gagarin, 1961. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth once aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961, becoming the first human being in space; the day is observed as the International Day of Human Space Flight. A is wrong because Alan Shepard of the United States made a short sub-orbital flight in May 1961, a few weeks after Gagarin and not in 1959. B is wrong because Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the Moon, on 20 July 1969, which is a different first altogether and the one most often confused with this. D is wrong because Valentina Tereshkova, also Soviet, became the first woman in space in 1963, two years after Gagarin. The ladder to remember is Sputnik 1957, Gagarin 1961 and Apollo 11 in 1969.

The correct answer is B, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Radhakrishnan, a philosopher and teacher who became the first Vice-President and the second President of India, was born on 5 September 1888; when his students wished to celebrate his birthday he asked that the day be kept for teachers instead. Option A is wrong because Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born on 11 November, which is National Education Day. Option C is wrong because Swami Vivekananda was born on 12 January, observed as National Youth Day. Option D is wrong because Dr Zakir Husain, the third President of India and an educationist, has no national day in his name. Remember also that World Teachers' Day, a UNESCO observance, falls a month later on 5 October. Examiners also like to ask who requested that the day be kept for teachers, and the answer is Radhakrishnan himself.

The correct answer is B, the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the lunar south pole, achieved by the Vikram lander on 23 August 2023. With it India became the fourth country to land on the Moon and the first to land in that polar region, and the landing site was named Shiv Shakti Point. The day was declared in 2024 and observed for the first time that year. Option A is wrong because Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008 and was an orbiter that carried the Moon Impact Probe. Option C is wrong because the Mars Orbiter Mission, or Mangalyaan, was launched in November 2013 and entered Martian orbit on 24 September 2014. Option D is wrong because the Indian Space Research Organisation was formed in 1969, and the Department of Space was created later, in 1972. Pair this day with 23 August 2023 in your notes.

The correct answer is C, 7 December. Armed Forces Flag Day has been observed since 1949, when it was decided that the country should contribute to the welfare of serving personnel, veterans and the families of those killed in service, and small flags are distributed in return for contributions. Option A is wrong because 1 December is the raising day of the Border Security Force. Option B is wrong because 4 December is Navy Day, kept for Operation Trident of 1971. Option D is wrong because 16 December is Vijay Diwas for the victory of 1971. December is the most crowded month in this topic, holding four separate days, so a candidate should revise the month as a block and not one day at a time.

The correct answer is A, 1989. The Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to stop movement from East Berlin to West Berlin, was opened and then demolished by crowds on both sides from 9 November 1989, and its fall is the symbol of the collapse of communist rule in eastern Europe. B is wrong because 1990 is the year in which East and West Germany were formally reunified, on 3 October, which follows the fall of the wall but is a separate event. C is wrong because 1991 is the year the Soviet Union itself was dissolved, in December, ending the Cold War; the sequence of wall, reunification and dissolution runs 1989, 1990, 1991. D is wrong because 1987 is the year of the speech in which the American president called for the wall to be torn down, two years before it actually was.

The correct answer is A, 19 to 25 November. The week is observed to strengthen national integration and communal harmony, with each day given a theme such as minorities welfare, linguistic harmony and women's day, and it closes on 25 November with Communal Harmony Flag Day. Option B is wrong because the first week of December carries Armed Forces Flag Day on 7 December, a separate observance for the welfare of ex-servicemen. Option C is wrong because 26 January is Republic Day, a single national day that begins no week of this kind. Option D is wrong because 15 August is Independence Day, again a single day. A flag day at the end of a week is a good clue to remember the November observance by.

The correct answer is A, 14 August. The day was announced in 2021 to remember the suffering, violence and displacement that accompanied the Partition of 1947, and it falls on the eve of Independence Day. Option B is wrong because 15 August is Independence Day itself. Option C is wrong but has a real link that makes it tempting: the Radcliffe Line award, which fixed the boundaries in Punjab and Bengal, was published on 17 August 1947, two days after independence. Option D is wrong because 3 June 1947 is the date of the Mountbatten Plan, also called the June Third Plan, which proposed the division of British India and was given effect by the Indian Independence Act passed in July 1947. Partition questions often combine these four dates, so keep the plan, the award and the two days of August distinct.

The correct answer is B, the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. The year 2019 marked one hundred and fifty years since Dmitri Mendeleev arranged the elements in his table in 1869, and the United Nations declared it the International Year of the Periodic Table alongside the International Year of Indigenous Languages. Option A is wrong because the International Year of Chemistry was 2011, chosen for the centenary of Marie Curie's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Option C is wrong because the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies was 2015. Option D is wrong because crystallography had its year in 2014, a century after the award of the Nobel Prize for X-ray diffraction. Note that indigenous languages were later given a full decade, from 2022 to 2032, and a year should not be confused with that decade.

The correct answer is C, 1969. Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969, and Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on its surface, followed by Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins stayed in the command module in orbit. The mission was the culmination of the space race begun by the Soviet Union with Sputnik. A is wrong because 1961 is the year Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and the year the American president set the goal of reaching the Moon before the decade ended. B is wrong because 1965 belongs to the middle of the programme, when the first spacewalks were made. D is wrong because 1972 is the year of Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the Moon, so it marks the end of the Moon landings rather than their beginning.

The correct answer is B, the Startup India initiative was launched, on 16 January 2016, and the Government announced in 2022 that the date would be observed as National Startup Day. The initiative offers recognised startups tax benefits, easier compliance and funding support, and it is run by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. Option A is wrong because Make in India was launched on 25 September 2014. Option C is wrong because the Atal Innovation Mission was set up under the NITI Aayog in 2016 but is not what this day marks, and it has no single founding date of this kind. Option D is wrong because Digital India was launched on 1 July 2015. Questions on government schemes frequently use these four launch dates against one another, so learn the date beside each scheme name.

The correct answer is A, 1453. Sultan Mehmed the Second captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine or Eastern Roman empire, and the city became the Ottoman capital under the name Istanbul. The closing of the overland route to the east pushed European states to look for a sea route to India, and many historians treat 1453 as the end of the Middle Ages. B is wrong because 1492 is the year Christopher Columbus reached the Americas sailing west for Spain, an outcome of the search that the fall of Constantinople set off. C is wrong because 1498 is the year Vasco da Gama reached Calicut by sea, on 17 May. D is wrong because 1517 is the year Martin Luther is said to have published his theses, beginning the Reformation.

The correct answer is B, National Mathematics Day, which has been observed on 22 December since 2012, when it was announced to mark the 125th birth anniversary of the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born on 22 December 1887. It therefore predates 2014. Option A is wrong as a choice because Parakram Diwas, on 23 January, was declared in 2021 for the 125th birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose. Option C is wrong because Veer Bal Diwas, on 26 December, was announced in 2022 for the younger sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh. Option D is wrong because National Space Day, on 23 August, was declared in 2024 after the landing of Chandrayaan-3. Other days older than 2014 that appear in such questions are National Voters' Day of 2011, National Sports Day of 2012 and National Panchayati Raj Day of 2010.