Important Days in May and June: Dates and Facts

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, 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, conducted nuclear tests at Pokhran. On 11 May 1998 India carried out nuclear tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan, and the same day brought the first test flight of the indigenous Hansa aircraft and a successful test of the Trishul missile. The day was declared soon afterwards to honour Indian scientists and engineers.

Option A is wrong because India's first satellite, Aryabhata, was launched in 1975 and has no connection with this date. Option C refers to work on indigenous supercomputing from the early 1990s, again unrelated to 11 May. Option D points to the start of nuclear power generation in the country in the late 1960s, which is a different milestone altogether. Keep the three Indian days of these two months apart by their reasons: 11 May for technology, 21 May for anti-terrorism and 29 June for statistics.

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 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 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 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, 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 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 A, P. C. Mahalanobis. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis founded the Indian Statistical Institute, gave statistics the measure known as the Mahalanobis distance and shaped the model used in the Second Five Year Plan, and the Government of India keeps his birthday as Statistics Day.

Option B, C. R. Rao, was a statistician of the same institute and of great distinction, which makes him the strongest distractor in this question, but the day is not his. Option C, Srinivasa Ramanujan, is honoured on 22 December, which is observed as National Mathematics Day, a pairing examiners like to set against this one. Option D, Satyendra Nath Bose, was a physicist known for Bose-Einstein statistics, a name that sounds close enough to mislead. Learn the two Indian science days together: 29 June for statistics and 22 December for mathematics.

The correct answer is C, 8 June. The day draws attention to the part the oceans play in the climate, in the oxygen we breathe and in the livelihoods of coastal communities, and it sits three days after World Environment Day.

Option A, 3 June, is World Bicycle Day, which recognises the bicycle as simple, clean and affordable transport. Option B, 5 June, is World Environment Day, the best known of the month and therefore the answer candidates give by reflex. Option D, 12 June, is the World Day Against Child Labour. Because the first half of June carries four separate observances, the best protection is to recite them in order, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 12 June, rather than trying to recall each on its own.

The correct answer is B, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister who was killed on 21 May 1991. The day was declared soon afterwards, and on it offices and institutions take a pledge against violence and terrorism in all its forms.

Option A is wrong because Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948, a date kept as Martyrs' Day. Option C refers to the attack on Parliament in December 2001, which has no separate national observance of this kind. Option D refers to the end of the Kargil conflict, remembered on 26 July as Kargil Vijay Diwas. All four are anniversaries of national importance, so the question is really asking whether you can attach the right event to the right date rather than merely recognise the names.