On This Day

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Important events of history that took place in India and elsewhere on today’s date.

20 January

🇮🇳 In India

1817 Raja Rammohan Roy established the Hindu College in Calcutta with the help of Justice H. East David Hare. This college was later renamed as the Presidency College.

1871 Sir Ratanji Jamshedji Tata, famous Indian industrialist, was born.

1948 United Nations Security Council Resolution 39 relating to India and Pakistan was adopted. It offered to assist in the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir Conflict by setting up a commission of three members.

1948 A bomb exploded at a prayer meeting at Birla House in which Mahatma Gandhi was participating. No one was hurt.

1949 Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, freedom fighter, lawyer, and politician, died. He was a key figure in India's struggle for independence, helping draft the Indian Constitution.

1957 First Indian Atomic Reactor "Apsara" was inaugurated by Prime Minister Nehru.

1988 Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as Frontier Gandhi, Pashtun independence activist against British colonial rule in India, died.

1993 Captain Karam Singh, first Paramveer Chakra Awardee, passed away at age 77.

1999 Renowned playwright Girish Karnad is selected for the 1998 Jnanpith Award.

🌎 Elsewhere

1910 Joy Adamson, naturalist, artist and author, was born. Her book Born Free, which describes her experiences of raising a lion cub named Elsa, was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name.

1972 Pakistan launches its nuclear weapons program, a few weeks after its defeat in the Bangladesh Liberation War, as well as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

2009 Barack Obama was sworn into office, making history as the first African-American US president.

2021 American Democratic politician Kamala Harris became the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States as she took the oath of office.

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