Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 3

The correct answer is A, Henry Dunant, the Swiss businessman whose account of the wounded left on a battlefield led to the founding of the Red Cross movement and to the first Geneva Convention. He shared the first Nobel Peace Prize, and the movement observes his birthday as its day.

Option B, Florence Nightingale, is honoured on 12 May as International Nurses Day, and the two observances lie four days apart, which is what the question is testing. Option C, Louis Pasteur, developed vaccines and the process of pasteurisation, but no day in this pair of months marks his birth. Option D, Alexander Fleming, discovered penicillin and again has no observance in May or June. Note that 8 May is also World Thalassaemia Day, so a paper may offer the same date for two different answers.

The correct answer is B, 2019. Mahatma Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat, so his 150th birth anniversary fell on 2 October 2019. The Government of India marked it with two years of celebrations from 2018 to 2020, and the Swachh Bharat Mission set its target of an open-defecation-free India for that date. The United Nations observes 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence, adopted in 2007. Gandhi Jayanti is one of India's three national holidays, along with Republic Day on 26 January and Independence Day on 15 August. A is wrong because 2018 was the 149th anniversary and only the start of the celebrations. C is wrong because 2020 was the 151st anniversary. D is wrong because 2021 was the 152nd. Exam tip: Gandhi born 2 October 1869; 150th anniversary in 2019; 2 October = International Day of Non-Violence.

The correct answer is C, Swadeshi Movement. National Handloom Day falls on 7 August because the Swadeshi Movement was formally launched on that date in 1905 at a meeting in Calcutta, in response to the partition of Bengal. The movement urged the boycott of foreign cloth and the use of Indian made goods, which makes the date a natural one for honouring handloom weavers.

Option A, the Quit India Movement, was launched on 8 August 1942 and its anniversary is observed on 9 August as August Kranti Diwas. Option B, the Non-Cooperation Movement, was begun by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920 and was withdrawn after the Chauri Chaura incident of 1922. Option D, the Civil Disobedience Movement, began with the Dandi March of March 1930, so none of these three matches the August date.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. National Unity Day, or Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, is observed on 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, who was born in 1875 at Nadiad, Gujarat. The day was started in 2014 to honour his role as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister who brought more than 560 princely states into the Indian Union, earning him the title Iron Man of India. It is marked with a Run for Unity and a unity pledge, and on 31 October 2018 the 182-metre Statue of Unity was unveiled in his memory at Kevadia on the Narmada. A is wrong because Dr Ambedkar's birth anniversary, 14 April, is Ambedkar Jayanti. B is wrong because Indira Gandhi's birthday, 19 November, is observed as National Integration Day. D is wrong because Mother Teresa was born on 26 August, which is not a national day. Exam tip: 31 October means Sardar Patel, National Unity Day and the Statue of Unity.

The correct answer is C, 31 May. The day closes the month and is meant to draw attention to the harm caused by tobacco in every form and to the policies that reduce its use. Being the last day of the month makes it one of the easiest dates in the chapter to fix.

Option A, 21 May, is Anti-Terrorism Day in India, kept on the anniversary of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Option B, 29 May, is Everest Day, marking the first ascent by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, and is also the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. Option D, 1 June, is World Milk Day, and it is the neighbouring date that most often draws a wrong answer here. Learning the end of May and the start of June as one short run protects you from all three distractors.

The correct answer is B, 3 May. The day is kept to remind governments of their duty towards freedom of expression and to mark the risks journalists take in their work, and it is the first of the international observances in the month.

Option A, 1 May, is International Labour Day, and in India it is also the foundation day of Maharashtra and Gujarat, both created on that date in 1960. Option C, 8 May, is World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, the birth anniversary of Henry Dunant, and is also observed as World Thalassaemia Day. Option D, 17 May, is World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, which marks the founding of the International Telecommunication Union in 1865. All four dates fall in the first half of May, which is exactly why the paper places them together, so learn the four as a block.

The correct answer is B, Major Dhyan Chand. National Sports Day is observed on 29 August, the birth anniversary of the hockey player Major Dhyan Chand, who was born in 1905 and was part of the Indian teams that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936. The national sports awards are traditionally presented on this day.

Option A, Milkha Singh, was the sprinter who finished fourth in the four hundred metres at the Rome Olympics of 1960, but no national day is named for him. Option C, K. D. Jadhav, was the wrestler who won India's first individual Olympic medal, a bronze at Helsinki in 1952, again without a day of observance. Option D, Balbir Singh Senior, was a hockey centre forward of the same golden era, and his presence among the options is meant to test whether the candidate knows which hockey player is meant.

The correct answer is A, 1 July. National Doctors Day is observed in India on 1 July because that date is both the birth anniversary and the death anniversary of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the physician who became Chief Minister of West Bengal and received the Bharat Ratna.

Option B, 7 April, is World Health Day, which marks the founding of the World Health Organization in 1948, and it is an international observance rather than an Indian one. Option C, 12 May, is International Nurses Day, held on the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, so it honours a different profession. Option D, 11 July, is World Population Day, fixed by the United Nations, and it appears in the options only because it is the other well known July date in this list.

The correct answer is A, 5 June. The United Nations General Assembly designated the day after the Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm in 1972, and it has been observed since 1973. A different country hosts the main event each year and a new theme is announced, so papers ask for the date rather than the theme.

Option B, 8 June, is World Oceans Day, the observance closest to it in both date and subject. Option C, 17 June, is the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, another environmental day of the same month. Option D, 22 May, is the International Day for Biological Diversity, which belongs to May. Because four environmental days fall within six weeks, the safest method is to learn them in order: 22 May, 5 June, 8 June, 17 June.

The correct answer is B, the announcement of the Raman Effect. C. V. Raman announced his discovery of the scattering of light that carries his name on 28 February 1928, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 1930. The Government of India designated the date as National Science Day in 1986 and the first observance was held in 1987.

Option A, the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick, also belongs to the early 1930s but has no connection with any Indian observance. Option C, the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, is a landmark in medicine and is placed here only as a plausible science event. Option D, the launch of Aryabhata, India's first satellite, took place in 1975 and is associated with the Indian space programme rather than with Science Day. Hold the three elements together: Raman, 1928 and 28 February.

The correct answer is B, 29 July. International Tiger Day, also called Global Tiger Day, is observed on 29 July every year to draw attention to the conservation of the tiger and of its habitat, and it is a date on which tiger range countries report on their efforts.

Option A, 28 July, is World Nature Conservation Day and also World Hepatitis Day, so it falls on the day before and is the closest trap in this set. Option C, 3 March, is World Wildlife Day, declared by the United Nations to mark the adoption of the convention on international trade in endangered species. Option D, 12 August, is World Elephant Day and International Youth Day, which belong to a different month and a different animal.

The correct answer is B, 23 March. The three revolutionaries were hanged in Lahore jail on 23 March 1931 in connection with the Lahore conspiracy case, and the day is observed in their memory across the country.

Option A, 30 January, is also called Martyrs' Day, but it marks the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, which is why the names in the question matter more than the label. Option C, 13 April, is the anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 at Amritsar, another day of mourning in the same season. Option D, 8 August, is associated with the launch of the Quit India Movement in 1942. Read the names given in the stem: three revolutionaries point to 23 March, and Gandhi to 30 January.

The correct answer is C, 2015. India proposed the day at the United Nations in 2014 and the General Assembly adopted the resolution in December of that year, so the first observance came on 21 June 2015. The date is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.

Option A, 2013, is before the proposal was made and has no bearing on the day. Option B, 2014, is the year the proposal was placed before the United Nations and the resolution adopted, and it is the answer most often chosen by candidates who remember only half the story. Option D, 2016, was the second observance. Hold the two years apart in one sentence: proposed and adopted in 2014, observed from 2015. Note also that 21 June is World Music Day and World Hydrography Day.

The correct answer is B, Florence Nightingale, who was born on 12 May 1820. Her work with wounded soldiers in the Crimean War and the training school she founded afterwards turned nursing into a trained profession, and the day carries her name in every account of it.

Option A, Mother Teresa, is remembered on other dates and is the name candidates reach for when a question joins nursing with service. Option C, Henry Dunant, founded the Red Cross movement and received the first Nobel Peace Prize; his birthday, 8 May, is World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day. Option D, Karl Landsteiner, discovered the ABO blood groups, and his birthday, 14 June, is World Blood Donor Day. Three of these four names anchor a day in May or June, so learn the set together: 8 May Dunant, 12 May Nightingale, 14 June Landsteiner.

The correct answer is B, Quit India Movement Day. The ninth of August is observed as Quit India Movement Day, or August Kranti Diwas, because the movement launched at the Bombay session of the Congress led to mass action from that date in 1942. The same date is also Nagasaki Day and the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.

Option A, Hiroshima Day, falls three days earlier, on 6 August, marking the first atomic bombing of 1945, and the two bombing dates are the commonest pair to be mixed up. Option C, National Handloom Day, is observed on 7 August after the Swadeshi Movement of 1905. Option D, Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, is observed on 14 August, the day before Independence Day, in memory of those displaced and killed during the partition of 1947.

The correct answer is B, 11 July. World Population Day is observed on 11 July, a date chosen by the United Nations because the population of the world was estimated to have crossed five billion on that day in 1987. The observance draws attention to family welfare, reproductive health and the pressure of numbers on resources.

Option A, 5 June, is World Environment Day, first held in 1974 and associated with the Stockholm Conference of 1972. Option C, 12 August, is International Youth Day and also World Elephant Day, both of which fall in the following month. Option D, 15 July, is World Youth Skills Day, another United Nations observance in the same month, which makes it the closest distractor in the set and the one candidates most often pick by mistake.

The correct answer is B, the ABO blood groups. The day falls on the birth anniversary of Karl Landsteiner, whose discovery of the blood groups made safe transfusion possible and won him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The observance thanks voluntary donors and encourages regular donation.

Option A refers to William Harvey, who described the circulation of blood in the seventeenth century; no day in June marks him. Option C refers to Alexander Fleming and penicillin, a discovery of 1928 that has no observance in this month. Option D refers to the work of Watson, Crick, Franklin and Wilkins in the 1950s, again with no day attached in May or June. Questions of this type join a date to a person, so keep a short list of those links for the whole year.

The correct answer is A, 6 August. Hiroshima Day is observed on 6 August, the date in 1945 on which the first atomic bomb used in war was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The day is marked worldwide with appeals for nuclear disarmament and for peace.

Option B, 9 August, is Nagasaki Day, when the second bomb was dropped three days later, and swapping these two dates is the mistake the question is built to catch. Option C, 15 August, is the Independence Day of India and also the date on which Japan announced its surrender in 1945, which adds to the confusion. Option D, 2 September, is the date on which the formal instrument of Japanese surrender was signed, ending the Second World War.

The correct answer is C, 26 June. The United Nations keeps this day to strengthen action against the production, trafficking and abuse of narcotic drugs, and the same date is also the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

Option A, 20 June, is World Refugee Day, which concerns people forced to flee their countries. Option B, 23 June, is International Olympic Day, marking the founding of the International Olympic Committee in 1894, and is also International Widows' Day and United Nations Public Service Day. Option D, 29 June, is National Statistics Day in India, the birth anniversary of P. C. Mahalanobis. The last ten days of June are crowded with observances, so revise them as a single run of dates rather than one at a time.

The correct answer is C, the soft landing of Chandrayaan 3 near the lunar south pole. The Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down near the south pole of the Moon on 23 August 2023, making India the first country to land in that region, and the date was declared National Space Day in memory of the achievement.

Option A, the launch of Aryabhata, India's first satellite, took place in April 1975 and is remembered but has no day of observance. Option B, the Mars Orbiter Mission, entered Martian orbit in September 2014 at the first attempt, a major achievement on a different date. Option D, the first flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, took place in 1993, and the vehicle became the workhorse of the Indian space programme thereafter.