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Pandit Nehru

Pandit Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru (जवाहरलाल नेहरू, Javāharlāl Nehrū) (November 14, 1889 – May 27, 1964), also called Pandit ('Scholar, Teacher') Nehru, was one of the most important leaders of the Indian Independence Movement and the Indian National Congress, and became the first Prime Minister of India when India won its independence on August 15, 1947. Nehru's 17 years as Prime Minister are the most influential of any national leader in the post-independence history of India. An adherent of socialism, Nehru was also a political visionary, writer and amateur historian.

Early Life

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, to Swaroop Rani, the wife of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy Allahabad-based barrister and political leader himself. He was Nehru's only son amongst three younger daughters. The Nehru family is of Kashmiri lineage and of the Saraswat Brahmins caste. Educated in the finest Indian schools of the time, Nehru returned from education in England at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge to practice law before following his father into politics. Nehru had the opportunity to travel across Europe and experience the culture of Western civilization. He returned home greatly Westernized in style and mannerism, thinking and behavior. By his parents' arrangement, Nehru married Kamala Nehru, then seventeen in 1916. At the time of his wedding on 8 February 1916, Jawaharlal was twenty-six, a British educated barrister. Kamala came from a well-known business family of Kashmiris in Delhi. Jawaharlal was domineering; Kamala quiet and unobtrusive. Despite Jawaharlal's presumably modern views, Kamala was to have very little impact on her petulant husband. In the second year of the marriage, Kamala gave birth to their only child, Indira Gandhi in 1917.

Gandhi and the 1920s

His father Motilal Nehru was already a prominent figure in the Indian National Congress and had served as its president. Thus when young and glamorous Jawaharlal entered the Congress, it excited young Indians all over, who felt Nehru would rejuvenate India's political leadership and come at the same level with the British rulers of the land. Nehru did not share Motilal's moderate-liberal line.He began to draw closer to the rising leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a former barrister who had won battles for equality and political rights for Indians in South Africa, and had emerged a national hero with the successful struggles in Champaran, Bihar and Kheda in Gujarat. Nehru was instantly attracted to Gandhi's commitment for active but peaceful, civil disobedience. Gandhi himself saw promise and India's future in the young Jawaharlal. The Nehru family transformed their lifestyle according to Gandhi's teachings. Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru abandoned western clothes and tastes for expensive possessions and pastimes, and adopted Hindi, or Hindustani as their common language of use. Young Jawaharlal now wore a khadi kurta and a Gandhi cap, all white - the new uniform of the Indian nationalist. Nehru was first arrested by the British during the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922), but released after a few months. After Gandhi suspended civil resistance in 1922 as a result of the killing of policemen in Chauri Chaura, thousands of Congressmen were disillusioned. When Gandhi opposed participation in the newly created legislative councils, many followed leaders like Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru to form the Swaraj Party, which advocated entry but only to sabotage government from within, as a tool to extracting concessions from the British to ensure stability. But Nehru did not join his father and stayed with Gandhi and the Congress. Jawaharlal was elected President of the Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and served for two years as the city's chief executive. This would be valuable but the only administrative experience Nehru would have before taking on India's whole government in 1947. He used his tenure to expand public education, health care and sanitation. He resigned citing lack of cooperation from civil servants and obstruction from British authorities. From 1926 to 1928, Jawaharlal served as the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee, an important step in his rise to Congress national leadership.

Political Attitudes

---- Jawaharlal was the leader of a new generation of Congressmen who were radical in political beliefs. He had been exposed to socialism in England and Europe, and following freedom struggles in Ireland and the revolution in Russia, Nehru became one of the first major Indian political figures to embrace the idea of full political independence from the British Empire. Even Gandhi and Motilal Nehru had not committed to this, but Nehru's vision was shared by another young radical Congressman, Subhas Chandra Bose, and a growing number of Indians.

Rise to Leadership

Upon his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi succeeded in re-uniting the Congress Party and increasing discipline of Congressmen by expanding activities for social reform and the alleviation of India's poor. With the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, led by the rising nationalist leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress was back in the business of revolution. In 1928-29, the Congress's annual session under President Motilal Nehru considered the next step. Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose backed a call for full political independence, while Motilal Nehru and otherswanted dominion status within the British Empire. To resolve the point, Gandhi said that the British would be given two years to grant India dominion status. If they did not, the Congress would launch a national struggle for full, political independence. Nehru and Bose reduced the time of opportunity to one year. The British did not respond. When the Congress convened its session in 1929, Gandhi backed the young Jawaharlal for the Congress presidency. Ever since the Congress began leading India's struggle for independence, the Congress President had become the symbolic leader of India and its people - standing right opposed to the British monarch. A large number of senior Congressmen felt that Nehru was too young, but Gandhi felt that the new struggle, the first major step on the road to full independence, should be inaugurated by a leader of India's future, which he saw in the young Nehru. Although confessing embarassment at his hurried ascent, President Nehru declared India's independence on January 26, 1930 in Lahore, raised free India's flag in a large public convention on the banks of the Ravi and inaugurated the struggle. Nehru was arrested in 1930, and during the Salt Satyagraha of 1931 for a number of years. The revolt was an astounding national success. Millions of Indians had participated, and the British were ultimately forced to acknowledge that Gandhi and the Congress Party were indeed the true representatives of India's people, and that there was a need for major political reform. When the British promulgated the Government of India Act 1935, the Congress Party decided to contest elections. Nehru stayed out of the elections, but campaigned vigorously nationwide for the party. The Congress formed governments in almost every province, and won the largest number of seats in the Central Assembly, which the Congress had denounced as powerless. But it was able to exercise control of provincial affairs, giving India its first taste of democratic self-government.

Personal Life

Through the 1920s, Nehru was increasingly active in political affairs, but his personal life also underwent significant changes. His father Motilal died in 1931, leaving him at the head of the Nehru household, whose life had become entirely political. His three sisters had joined the Congress women's wing, and Kamala Nehru was working on social causes. His daughter too, had formed the Vanara Sena. The late 1920s saw his marriage revitalized, and Kamala and he grew closer as a couple. From prison Nehru would write letters to his young daughter, later published as Letters from a Father to his Daughter. But Kamala's weak health now began caving under the pressure of tuberculosis. Nehru was released from prison so that he could take Kamala to specialist clinics in Germany and Switzerland. For two years, Nehru would go back and forth from India to Europe, but after a prolonged fight, Kamala succumbed to the disease in 1936.

Socialism and Quit India

Nehru was elected again to the Congress Presidency in 1936, and again in 1937. In his famous speech to the session in Lucknow in 1936, he pushed the passage of the Avadi Resolution which committed the Congress to socialism as the basis of the future agenda of a free India's government. But the effort was strongly criticized by major Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Sardar Patel. Nehru transformed his position to commit that the resolution did not in fact bind Congress to socialism, and that the Congress Party's main goal was independence, not socialism. However, Nehru had grown politically closer to Congress socialists like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Narendra Dev and the liberal-socialist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. When World War II broke out, Nehru and the Congress condemned the unilateral decision made by the British viceroy to enter India, but were divided as to what to do about it. Nehru and Patel made an offer of cooperation with the British, promising whole-hearted support if after the war, the British would deliver India's political freedom. This was opposed by Gandhi, but marked the first occasion when Nehru, and indeed a majority of Congress leaders went against his advice. Several British politicians and British officials backed the offer, considering Indian support valuable, but the bid failed when the British ruled out any political reform. The Congress Party ordered all of its elected members in the Central and provincial assemblies to resign, and another national struggle seemed inevitable. Nehru and Maulana Azad were lukewarm to Gandhi's call for revolt, still considering it a good possibility that the British would ultimately concede independence for Indian support. Although many other Indian political parties opposed the call, Gandhi and Sardar Patel convinced Nehru and Azad, and the entire Indian National Congress to a final showdown with the British Empire. The Quit India Movement was launched on August 13, 1942. The Congress made an open call for complete independence immediately. Only an independent India would decide whether India would participate in the war. The Congress asked all Indians to boycott British goods, the institutions and factories run by the British, public services and government programs. Major strikes, protests and demonstrations broke out all over India, and although other political parties did not participate, it proved to be the most forceful revolt in the history of British rule. Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee were immediately arrested. The Committee was imprisoned in a fort-turned-prison in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, separate from Gandhi, who was incarcerated in Pune. The British had made arrangements to deport the leaders if necessary, but felt that then any chance of regaining order would be lost due to public outrage. Outside, hundreds of thousands of Indian freedom fighters were imprisoned, and thousands were killed in police firings. Incarcerated for 32 months with his fellow Congress leaders, Nehru focused on writing his Discovery of India.

Congress Presidency

Upon the end of the war, Nehru and the Congress leadership were released. The new Labour Party government of Clement Attlee in Britain was preparing plans for India's independence. In 1946, the Congress convened its session for a presidential election, knowing fully that this leader would become the head of India's government. The choice of 15 state Congress units was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the more conservative nationalist leader from Gujarat. Patel had emerged as a man commanding the respect of all Indian nationalists, a leader of integrity, convictions and forcefulness, and as a leader capable of standing up to Gandhi. Patel was a close supporter of Gandhi, but at odds with Nehru's socialist tendencies, as well as a perceived arrogance coupled with naivete in political judgment which Patel felt had embarrassed the Congress on multiple occassions. Nehru was nominated by no state unit, but the Working Committee made a tentative nomination. Gandhi asked Patel to withdraw himself from the election, allowing Nehru's election, and Patel promptly did so. This episode is deeply controversial to contemporary historians. Patel was committed to Gandhi's leadership and thus did not hesitate to follow him, but Gandhi's choice of Nehru is deeply criticized. Patel was the choice of a majority of the Congress's members, while practically no one backed Nehru. It has been suggested that Nehru, coveting the mantle of being India's first leader, privately told Gandhi that he would not take second place. Gandhi had envisioned Nehru as India's leader, but asked Patel to withdraw as he feared that Nehru, intensely popular with the masses, would split the Congress and jeopardize India's transition to independence.

Partition and Independence

Elections were held in 1946 to the Constituent Assembly of India. The Congress swept the vote at the central level and most of British India's provinces. The All India Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah had become the prime political opponent of the Congress. The League demanded a separate Muslim state, and enjoyed the support of many of India's Muslims. Nehru and the Congress Party strongly opposed India's partition, or any excessive political concessions to the League to prevent this. The party accepted the May 16 Plan proposed by the Cabinet Mission led by Sir Stafford Cripps as the only resort to preventing India's division as proposed in the June 16 plan. Although the May 16 plan envisioned communal grouping of India's provinces, the Congress accepted to keep the League from usurping control of the new interim government. When the League pulled out from the process, Congress was left in complete control of the new government. Nehru became the Vice President of the Viceroy's Executive Council, de facto head of government. But Jinnah's Direct Action Day to protest this left over 10,000 Hindus and Muslims dead in the following months. Fearing communal chaos, the Congress decided to allow the League to enter the council. However, Nehru's leadership was rejected by the new League ministers, and the council stalled over every policy decision. Considering a political coalition unworkable and the communal situation dangerous enough to lead to full civil war between Hindus and Muslims, Nehru and Sardar Patel backed the plan of Lord Louis Mountbatten, India's last viceroy to partition the country into India and Pakistan. Nehru and Patel managed to convince Gandhi, who was fearful about partition but even more fearful of civil war. The AICC adopted the resolution in June, 1947. Nehru served on the Partition Council that finalized the separation of government institutions and provincial resources between the two new dominions. On August 15th, 1947, India became an independent nation. At the age of 58, Jawaharlal Nehru became the Prime Minister of India. Lord Louis Mountbatten became the Governor General of the Dominion, and the Constituent Assembly began work to draft the Constitution of India and transition to a sovereign Republic.

Prime Minister of India

Constitution of India Jawaharlal Nehru served as India's Prime Minister from August 15, 1947, to May 27, 1964 - the day he died. His ideals, vision and leadership would shape the policies that would define India's economic, social and political development for over four decades.

1947 to 1952, With Sardar Patel

Prime Minister Nehru headed a Cabinet that included leaders from across the political spectrum like Syama Prasad Mookerjee and B.R. Ambedkar. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the Deputy Prime Minister of India and the Union Home Minister. Although Patel was powerful in the Congress Party and enjoyed far more respect and support of Congressmen than Nehru did, he could not match Nehru's popularity with the masses, his youth and dynamism. But India's first administration was a duumvirate, and Nehru did not dominate. Whenever the two faced a dispute, they would ask Gandhi to arbitrate and decide the matter. Nehru and Patel spent their first weeks in strenous efforts to restore peace to Punjab and Bengal after partition, and rehabilitating over 10 million incoming refugees from Pakistan. When Pakistani raiders attacked the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, Nehru insisted upon the state's immediate accession before the aiding of military assistance. While the state complied, in December 1947 Nehru declared a cease-fire and asked the UN to arbitrate the Kashmir dispute. This move is today largely criticised for the failure to evict Pakistani militants from Kashmir, 3 successive wars and the continuation of this dispute till present day. Gandhi's asssassination on January 30, 1948 was a major blow to India. Nehru wept as did many millions of Indians, and he and Patel embraced together. Many called for Patel's resignation following the murder, blaming his Home Ministry for failing to protect Gandhi, but Nehru rejected Patel's resignation, and gave an unusual and personal vote of confidence, and a commitment to work together. Patel was also bound by a promise to Gandhi to stay in government, but was prepared to resign if Nehru did not desire for his continuance. However, Nehru and Patel still disagreed on the issue of Hyderabad, which had resisted annexation. Nehru and Mountbatten engaged in strenous diplomacy in the months when Patel was recuperating from a heart attack, but with their failure Nehru was forced to conceed the need for military action. Patel undertook Operation Polo as Acting Prime Minister while Nehru was in Europe, and Hyderabad was merged into the Union. But Nehru resisted similar action on Goa, occupied by the Portuguese and resisted sending military aid to Tibet, which was invaded by Communist China in 1950. More than 900,000 Hindu refugees had flooded out of East Pakistan, fearing intimidation and violence from Muslims. There were many allegations of government-forced evictions, and since over 1 million people had died since partition, it was a political firestorm. Nehru invited Pakistan's Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to Delhi to discuss the matter, against the advice of Sardar Patel and many other Indian politicians. Although aware of military options, Nehru wanted to make his best effort for peace. The Delhi Pact of 1949 guaranteed minority rights in both countries, creating minority commissions in the Punjab and Bengal provinces of both countries. It was strongly condemned as appeasement in West Bengal by Hindus, and several Cabinet ministers resigned in protest. Nehru became a hated figure overnight. Although Patel had firmly criticized it, he now publicly defended it. Visiting West Bengal, he talked to the common people and a variety of Hindu and Muslim citizen groups, asking the people to give peace a last try. As a result of Patel's efforts, the pact was approved and around 800,000 Hindus returned to East Pakistan. Nehru was embarassed when he tried to impose his preference on the Congress presidential election of 1950, lobbying against conservative Purushottam Das Tandon and again trying to approve Governor General Chakravarti Rajgopalachari as the first President of the forthcoming Indian Republic. Going against the will of the majority of Congressmen and rejecting Patel's aid, Nehru was strongly criticized within the party. Tandon won his election, and the party backed its favorite Dr. Rajendra Prasad, who became the first President of India. At this point, Nehru considered resignation, seeing his support in the party evaporate. Patel rebuked him for ignoring the party membership but assured him there was no need to resign. With Patel's support, Nehru continued in office. The Constitution of India was signed on January 26, 1949, and came into effect the next year. In 1952, India held its first democratic national elections, and Nehru led the Congress Party to a sweeping majority in the Parliament of India. Sardar Patel had died at the end of 1950, and the real Nehru era was about to begin.

The Personal Life of the Prime Minister

In 1946, Nehru had moved into the former residence of the British Commander in Chief of the Indian Army on York Road, in Delhi. With independence, this became the official residence of the PM, and after Nehru's death in 1964, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Nehru lived alone initially, but was later joined by his daughter Indira Gandhi, who despite having a young family of her own felt a need to take care of her father's personal needs. Over the years she became his virtual chief of staff - managing his schedule and appointments, instructing the staff of the residence and often accompanying him on foreign trips and in meetings with world leaders. Nehru was reputed to work 18 hours a day, and frequently visited the nations of Western Europe and the United States on diplomatic, as well as leisure trips.

Nehru's policies

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's administration created the policies that formed the backbone of India's social and economic development, national defense and position in world affairs for over four decades.

Economic policy

Nehru was fascinated by the Soviet Union's Piatiletka or 5-year plans. But he wrote after a visit there in the 1920s that 'the human costs are unpayable'. A believer in the 'mixed economy' of Harold Laski and influenced by the Fabian Society, Nehru wished the economy of India to be partially capitalist, but with the state occupying a large role, especially in the commanding heights of the economy. In setting a path for the economic policy after Independence, he chose from a set of options considerably more limited than those available today, and followed to a large degree the conventional wisdom among Indian academic economists of the time. India's growth rate in GDP stayed moderately above 4% during all the years that Nehru was Prime Minister. It is hard to say definitively how much growth there might have been with different economic policies: predominantly capitalist Western Europe grew slightly faster than India during the Nehru years (especially during the decade after World War II); but so did the command economies of communist China and the Soviet Union. The strongly capitalist USA grew somewhat more slowly, as did most of the newly independent nations that followed WWII (with the exception of oil-producing nations). Some recent (but isolated) studies influenced by Chicago School economists—such as one by Goldman Sachs—have claimed that India, had the potential to grow faster than it did in the post-Nehru 1960-1980 timeframe. According to this thinking, that opportunity was wasted out of a misplaced faith in the power of economic planning. Economist Jagdish Bhagwati has remarked that India's problem has been that it has too many brilliant economists; Bhagwati believes the stalwarts of Nehru's Planning Commissions began to believe in their own infallibility, to the detriment of the Indian nation. B. R. Shenoy a contemporary opponent of Nehru's Second Five-Year Plan, notably, is now considered a significant theorist in the Austrian School of Economics. The Soviet Union was the only major power during Nehru's tenure to aid India in developing independent capabilities areas of heavy industry, engineering, and technology. This political fact, combined with Nehru's preference for state-led development, promoted suspicion about the sincerity of India's non-aligned foreign policy positions. In hindsight, the Nehruvian model failed in many of its objectives; however, many Indian economists—particularly among Nehru's contemporaries—believe Nehru's emphasis on central planning was the right policy for India of that time. Some critics of Indian economic development believe that the economy of the Nehruvian and post-Nehruvian era, with inefficient public sector entities on the one hand, and crony-capitalist private sector entities that used the so-called license raj to carve out lucrative niches for themselves on the other, was a product of economic policy foundations laid during Nehru's tenure. Nehru's economic policies are sometimes confused by critics with those of his daughter, Indira Gandhi, which were more statist and dirigiste in orientation. Nehru's economics of state intervention and investment were conceived at a time when transfers of capital and technology important to India were not easily forthcoming from the developed world (which at the time also had plenty of state-sponsored capital controls.)

Foreign Policy

Nehru 's foreign policy was supportive of anti-colonialism, and the freedom movements in Tanzania, Algeria, Indochina and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. Nehru was also one of the founding statesmen of the Non Aligned Movement, of Asian and African nations seeking to stay away from the pressures of the alliances created by the USA and USSR. Nehru also condemned the invasion of Suez in 1956 by Israel, Britain and France. However, Nehru's neutrality was strongly criticized when he failed to condemn the USSR's invasion of Hungary in 1956-58. On November 27, 1946, Nehru appealed to the United States and the Soviet Union to end nuclear testing and to start nuclear disarmament, stating that such an action would "save humanity from the ultimate disaster." Nehru's personal charisma extended to the world stage where, because of his leadership, India was often seen to be "punching above its weight." As Prime Minister, he pursued a foreign policy of non-alignment and became a founder and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. He pursued India's claim to Kashmir in the face of Pakistani opposition, resulting in the First Kashmir War (1947-49). Not wishing to confront China, Nehru did not protest the Chinese conquest of Tibet, despite the fact that it meant the disappearance of a buffer state that had separated China and India, although the Dalai Lama was permitted to set up a government-in-exile at Dharamsala. Military defeat at the hands of the People's Republic of China in the Sino-Indian War in October 1962 brought strong criticism of military unpreparedness and Nehru's policy of excessive trust in China, which had, to its credit, truthfully indicated its intention to occupy both Tibet and parts of northern India.

Home Front

Nehru was leading a combination of old and young Indians all energized by patriotism and the opportunity to finally put their dreams and vision for India into practice. The Nehru years were generally peaceful, with the generation of freedom-fighters controlling the Union and state governments and political parties. Nehru also engineered major social and political reforms in India. Laws were passed abolishing caste discrimination, dowry weddings and suttee, and extending legal rights and social freedoms to Indian women, all against tough opposition from orthodox Hindus. Discrimination based on casteism was outlawed. Nehru championed a nationwide campaign to enroll every Indian child in a primary school and encourage higher education. The famous Indian Institutes of Technology were established during Nehru's reign. In 1957, the States Reorganization Commission led by P.C. Mahanalobis promulgated a plan to create new Indian states whose territorial boundaries would be defined by the majority language of the resident population. While generally supported, this plan caused sectarian violence in Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where states argued about the territorial demarcation, and violence erupted between different ethnic communities. Once he saw that both party and country wanted it, Nehru yielded to the formation of linguistic states — a policy he was personally opposed to. The debate of making Hindi the national language also heated up as a result, claiming a number of lives amidst times of disorder. Nehru also encouraged peaceful generation of nuclear energy, financing work at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai. He solicited economic and technical support from the USA, Canada, the UK, France and the USSR, all who helped establish major industrial factories, steel plants and India's first nuclear reactors. Major dams and irrigation canals, roads and highways, electric power stations and a host of other public works were constructed.

Legacy

Nehru is India's longest serving Prime Minister, leading his party to victory in three general elections in 1952, 1957 and 1962. In an interview to an American magazine Nehru had said, "My legacy to India is, hopefully, 400 million people capable of governing themselves." His death on May 27, 1964 was because of a sudden heart attak. It was mourned by millions of people. He was cremated in Shantivana. Scores of sports stadiums, public roads and highways, schools and colleges around India have been named after him. The Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi is one of the best in India, and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust was constructed in the 1980s to relieve India's largest port city, Mumbai. Nehru was very famous for his rose which he always kept in his breast poket. A rose had been given to him by his wife on her death-bed, and he picked a fresh rose each morning in her memory.

The Nehru Family in Indian Politics

Nehru also sired the most powerful political dynasty in India's modern history. His daughter Indira Gandhi would become Prime Minister within two years of his death in 1966, and would serve for 15 years and 3 terms. His grandson Rajiv Gandhi would hold that office from 1984 to 1989. Today, Rajiv's widow Sonia Gandhi is Congress President, but is not Prime Minister despite the Congress currently being the largest party in the Parliament. It is speculated that Sonia is grooming her son Rahul Gandhi for the future, possibly the next Indian Prime Minister.
- Motilal Nehru
- Indira Gandhi
- Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
- Kamala Nehru
- Rajiv Gandhi
- Sonia Gandhi
- Maneka Gandhi
- Sanjay Gandhi
- Varun Gandhi
- Rahul Gandhi
- Priyanka Gandhi

Books, Quotes and Trivia


- Nehru's letters to his daughter Indira during successive periods of imprisonment in 1930-1934 were later compiled into a book called Glimpses of World History.
- His 1942-1945 incarceration produced The Discovery of India, a history of India with digressions.
- Subsequently, he wrote An Autobiography (ISBN 014303104X), which was a New York Times best seller. The words of Nehru's famous Tryst with Destiny speech on the eve of Indian Independence is as familiar, and indeed significant, to Indian ears as the Gettysburg Address is to Americans. However, to a modern Indian listening to a tinny recording of that speech, Nehru's famed charisma does not quite come across although he was supposedly a legendary orator.
- Nehru had a golden bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi and a hand of Abraham Lincoln on his office desk.
- In 1937, Modern Review of Calcutta carried a letter, under the pen-name Chanakya, that warned members of the Congress Party against Nehru, then party president, declaring that he had "tendencies towards autocracy" and needed to be firmly checked before he "turns into Caesar". It emerged many years later that the letter was written by Nehru himself.
- Nehru popularized the Nehru jacket.
- Nehru's birthday, 14 November, is celebrated as Children's Day in India, in memory of his love of children.

Further Reading


- Nehru-Gandhi family
- [http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tryst_With_Destiny A Tryst With Destiny historic speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru on August 14th, 1947] Speech in the Constituent Assembly of India, on the eve of India's Independence
- Nehru: A Biography by Shashi Tharoor (November 2003) Arcade Books ISBN 155970697X
- Jawaharlal Nehru (Edited by S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar) (July 2003) The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru Oxford University Press ISBN 019565324X
- Autobiography:Toward freedom Oxford University Press Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Category:Indian freedom fighters Category:Politicians Nehru, Jawaharlal Category:Prime Ministers of India Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jawaharlal Category:British rule in India Category:Finance Ministers of India Category:Indian writers Category:Writers Nehru, Jawaharlal ja:ジャワハルラール・ネルー

November 14

November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 47 days remaining.

Events


- 1851 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York - after it was first published on October 18, 1851 by Richard Bentley, London.
- 1862 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln approves General Ambrose Burnside's plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, leading to the Battle of Fredericksburg.
- 1889 - Pioneer woman journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) begins a successful attempt to travel around the world in less than 80 days.
- 1911 - Aviation pioneer Eugene Ely performs the first take-off from a ship in Hampton Roads, VA. He took off from a makeshift deck on the light cruiser USS Birmingham in a Curtiss pusher.
- 1918 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
- 1921 - The Communist Party of Spain is founded.
- 1922 - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) begins radio service in the United Kingdom.
- 1940 - World War II: In England, the city of Coventry is heavily bombed by German Luftwaffe bombers.
- 1941 - World War II: The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13.
- 1952 - First regular UK singles chart published by the New Musical Express.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: Battle of the Ia Drang begins - the first major engagement between regular American and North Vietnamese forces.
- 1969 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.
- 1970 - Southern Airways DC-9 crashes in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia, killing 75, including members of the Marshall University football team.
- 1971 - Mariner program: Mariner 9 reaches Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
- 1971 - His Holiness Shenouda III was concescrated as the 117th Patriarch of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark, the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
- 1972 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 1,000 (1,003.16) for the first time.
- 1973 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Anne marries Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey.
- 1974 - Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murders his family in their Amityville, New York home.
- 1975 - Spain abandons Western Sahara.
- 1979 - Iran hostage crisis: US President Jimmy Carter issues Executive order12170, freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.
- 1982 - Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland's outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border.
- 1990 - After German reunification, the (extended) Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland sign a treaty confirming the Oder-Neisse line as the border between Germany and Poland.
- 1991 - American and British authorities announce indictments against two Libyan intelligence officials in connection with the downing of the Pan Am Flight 103.
- 1991 - Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk returns to Phnom Penh after thirteen years of exile.
- 1991 - A fired United States Postal Service employee goes on a shooting rampage, killing four and wounding five, before committing suicide.
- 1995 - A budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress forces the federal government to temporarily close national parks and museums and to run most government offices with skeleton staffs.
- 2000 - Netscape Navigator version 6.0 is launched following two years of open source development.
- 2001 - Attack on Afghanistan: Afghan Northern Alliance fighters takeover the capital Kabul.
- 2002 - Argentina defaults on an $805 million World Bank payment.
- 2002 - The US House of Representatives votes to not create an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks.
- 2003 - Planetoid 90377 Sedna is discovered.
- 2005 - Silver Star Mountain Resort opens its 2005-2006 ski season.

Births

1567 to 1899


- 1567 - Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (d. 1625)
- 1650 - King William III of England (d. 1702)
- 1719 - Leopold Mozart, Austrian composer (d. 1787)
- 1765 - Robert Fulton, American inventor (d. 1815)
- 1771 - Marie François Xavier Bichat, French anatomist and pysiologist (d. 1802)
- 1776 - Henri Dutrochet, French physiologist (d. 1847)
- 1779 - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, Danish poet (d. 1850)
- 1797 - Charles Lyell, British geologist (d. 1875)
- 1803 - Jacob Abbott, American writer (d. 1879)
- 1805 - Fanny Mendelssohn, German composer and pianist (d. 1847)
- 1812 - Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet (d. 1878)
- 1828 - James B. McPherson, American Civil War general (d. 1864)
- 1838 - August Senoa, Croatian writer (d. 1881)
- 1840 - Claude Monet, French painter (d. 1926)
- 1878 - Leopold Staff, Polish poet (d. 1957)
- 1883 - Fred Quimby, American film producer (d. 1965)
- 1889 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India (d. 1964)
- 1891 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941)
- 1896 - Mamie Eisenhower, First Lady of the United States (d. 1979)

1900 to 1999


- 1900 - Aaron Copland, American composer (d. 1990)
- 1904 - Harold Larwood, English cricketer (d. 1995)
- 1904 - Dick Powell, American actor (d. 1963)
- 1905 - John Henry Barbee, American guitarist and singer (d. 1964)
- 1906 - Louise Brooks, American actress (d. 1985)
- 1907 - Howard W. Hunter, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1995)
- 1907 - Astrid Lindgren, Swedish writer (d. 2002)
- 1907 - William Steig, American cartoonist and children's book author (d. 2003)
- 1908 - Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator and anti-communist (d. 1957)
- 1910 - Eric Malpass, English novelist (d. 1996)
- 1912 - Barbara Hutton, American socialite (d. 1979)
- 1912 - T. Y. Lin, Chinese-born civil engineer (d. 2003)
- 1915 - Martha Tilton, American singer
- 1916 - Roger Apéry, French mathematician (d. 1994)
- 1916 - Sherwood Schwartz, American television writer and producer
- 1919 - Veronica Lake, American actress (d. 1973)
- 1919 - Lisa Otto, German soprano
- 1921 - Brian Keith, American actor (d. 1997)
- 1922 - Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egyptian UN Secretary-General
- 1924 - Leonid Borisovitch Kogan, Russian violinist (d. 1982)
- 1927 - Bart Cummings, Australian race horse trainer
- 1929 - Jimmy Piersall, baseball player
- 1939 - McLean Stevenson, American actor (d. 1996)
- 1930 - Edward White, astronaut (d. 1967)
- 1935 - King Hussein of Jordan (d. 1999)
- 1939 - Wendy Carlos, American composer
- 1943 - Peter Norton, American software engineer and businessman
- 1945 - Stella Obasanjo, Nigerian First Lady
- 1947 - P. J. O'Rourke, American writer
- 1948 - Charles, Prince of Wales
- 1951 - Stephen Bishop, American musician
- 1953 - Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of France
- 1954 - Bernard Hinault, French cyclist
- 1954 - Condoleezza Rice, United States Secretary of State
- 1954 - Yanni, Greek musician
- 1959 - Paul McGann, British actor
- 1964 - Bill Hemmer, American television news reporter
- 1966 - Curt Schilling, American baseball player
- 1967 - Letitia Dean, British actress
- 1967 - Nina Gordon, American singer and songwriter
- 1971 - Adam Gilchrist, Australian cricketer
- 1972 - Martin Pike, Australian footballer
- 1973 - Lawyer Milloy, American football player
- 1973 - Dana Snyder, American voice actor
- 1975 - Travis Barker, American drummer
- 1978 - Xavier Nady, baseball player

Deaths


- 565 - Justinian the Great, Byzantine Emperor (b. 483)
- 1226 - Frederick of Isenberg, German politician (executed) (b. 1193)
- 1263 - Alexander Nevsky, Grand Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir
- 1359 - Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica (b. 1296)
- 1522 - Anne de Beaujeu, Princess and Regent of France (b. 1461)
- 1556 - Giovanni della Casa, Italian poet (b. 1504)
- 1633 - William Ames, English philosopher (b. 1576)
- 1687 - Nell Gwynne, English mistress of Charles II of England (b. 1650)
- 1691 - Tosa Mitsuoki, Japanese painter (b. 1617)
- 1716 - Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher and mathematician (b. 1646)
- 1734 - Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, French-born mistress of Charles II of England (b. 1649)
- 1746 - Georg Steller, German naturalist (b. 1709)
- 1825 - Jean Paul, German writer (b. 1763)
- 1829 - Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, French pharmacist and chemist (b. 1763)
- 1831 - Georg Hegel, German philosopher (b. 1770)
- 1832 - Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the American Declaration of Independence and U.S. Senator (b. 1732)
- 1844 - John Abercrombie, British physician (b. 1780)
- 1866 - King Miguel of Portugal (b. 1802)
- 1907 - Andrew Inglis Clark, Australian politician (b. 1848)
- 1908 - The Guangxu Emperor of China, (b. 1871)
- 1915 - Booker T. Washington, American inventor, educator, and author (b. 1856)
- 1916 - Saki, British writer (b. 1870)
- 1944 - Carl Flesch, Hungarian violinist (b. 1873)
- 1946 - Manuel de Falla, Spanish composer (b. 1876)
- 1972 - Martin Dies, Jr., American politician (b. 1900)
- 1992 - Ernst Happel, Austrian football coach (b. 1925)
- 1994 - Tom Villard, American actor (b. 1953)
- 1997 - Eddie Arcaro, American jockey (b. 1916)
- 2000 - Robert Trout, American journalist (b. 1908)
- 2003 - Gene Anthony Ray, American actor (b. 1962)
- 2004 - Margaret Hassan, Irish-born aid worker (b. 1945)

Holidays and observances


- Roman festivals - Equorum Probatio
- India - Birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru: Children's day
- World Diabetes Day
- United States - [http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbw/ National Children's Book Week] begins

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/14 BBC: On This Day] ---- November 13 - November 15 - October 14 - December 14 -- listing of all days ko:11월 14일 ms:14 November ja:11月14日 simple:November 14 th:14 พฤศจิกายน

May 27

May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining.

Events


- 1328 - Philip VI is crowned King of France.
- 1703 - Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
- 1813 - War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
- 1849 - The Great Hall of Euston station, London opened.
- 1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.
- 1883 - Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
- 1895 - Oscar Wilde is sent to prison for sodomy.
- 1896 - The F4-strength St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and incurring $2.9 billion in damages (1997USD).
- 1901 - In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
- 1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
- 1907 - A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California.
- 1919 - The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
- 1923 - The first 24 hours of Le Mans race ends.
- 1924 - The Music Corporation of America (MCA) is founded.
- 1927 - The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make Ford Model As.
- 1930 - The 1,046 feet (319 meters) tall Chrysler Building in New York (tallest man-made structure at the time) opens to the public.
- 1932 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
- 1933 - New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
- 1933 - The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
- 1933 - The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1935 - New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
- 1936 - The RMS Queen Mary begins her maiden voyage.
- 1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.
- 1939 - DC Comics publishes its second superhero in Detective Comics #27; he is Batman, one of the most topical comic book superheroes of all time.
- 1940 - World War II: 97 out of 99 members of a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are massacred while trying to surrender at Dunkirk. The German commander, Captain Fritz Knochlein, is eventually hanged for war crimes.
- 1941 - World War II: U.S. President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
- 1941 - World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300 men.
- 1942 - World War II: Operation Anthropoid - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.
- 1960 - In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government.
- 1963 - Folk music singer Bob Dylan releases The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, which features "Blowin' in the Wind" and several other of his best-known songs.
- 1964 - Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office.
- 1965 - Vietnam War: United States warships begin bombardments of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam for the first time.
- 1968 - Future U.S. president George W. Bush enlists in the Texas Air National Guard.
- 1974 - Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1980 - The Gwangju Massacre: airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
- 1995 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
- 1996 - First Chechnya War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire in the war.
- 1997 - The F5-strength Jarrell Tornado slams into the small town of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
- 1998 - Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
- 1999 - The International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.

Births


- 1332 - Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian (d. 1406)
- 1519 - Girolamo Mei, Italian humanist historian (d. 1594)
- 1576 - Caspar Schoppe, German scholar (d. 1649)
- 1623 - William Petty, English scientist and philosopher (d. 1687)
- 1626 - William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
- 1651 - Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles, French cardinal (d. 1729)
- 1652 - Liselotte von der Pfalz, Duchess of Orléans (d. 1722)
- 1738 - Nathaniel Gorham, American politician (d. 1796)
- 1756 - King Maximilian I of Bavaria (d. 1825)
- 1794 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (d. 1877)
- 1819 - Julia Ward Howe, American composer (d. 1910)
- 1836 - Jay Gould, American financier (d. 1892)
- 1837 - Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)
- 1864 - Ante Trumbić, Croatian politician (d. 1938)
- 1867 - Arnold Bennett, British novelist (d. 1931)
- 1871 - Georges Rouault, French painter and graphic artist (d. 1958)
- 1877 - Isadora Duncan, American dancer (d. 1927)
- 1884 - Max Brod, Austrian author (d. 1968)
- 1888 - Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
- 1894 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (d. 1961)
- 1894 - Dashiell Hammett, American author (d. 1961)
- 1897 - John Cockcroft, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
- 1904 - Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (b. 1997)
- 1907 - Rachel Carson, American ecologist (d. 1964)
- 1911 - Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
- 1911 - Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem
- 1911 - Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
- 1912 - John Cheever, American author (d. 1982)
- 1912 - Sam Snead, American golfer (d. 2002)
- 1913 - Wols, German painter
- 1915 - Herman Wouk, American writer
- 1917 - Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan
- 1922 - Christopher Lee, English actor
- 1923 - Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1923 - Sumner Redstone, American entrepreneur
- 1925 - Tony Hillerman, American writer
- 1930 - John Barth, American novelist
- 1933 - Ted Rogers, Canadian entrepreneur
- 1934 - Harlan Ellison, American author
- 1935 - Lee Meriwether, American beauty queen and actress
- 1936 - Louis Gossett Jr., American actor
- 1937 - Allan Carr, American film producer and writer (d. 1999)
- 1943 - Cilla Black, English singer
- 1943 - Bruce Weitz, American actor
- 1945 - Bruce Cockburn, Canadian musician
- 1946 - Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish musician (d. 2005)
- 1947 - Branko Oblak, Slovenian football player
- 1955 - Eric Bischoff, American professional wrestling personality
- 1957 - Siouxsie Sioux, English musician (Siouxsie and the Banshees )
- 1958 - Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
- 1958 - Linnea Quigley, American actress
- 1961 - Peri Gilpin, American actress
- 1964 - Adam Carolla, American comedian and radio/television personality
- 1968 - Jeff Bagwell, baseball player
- 1968 - Frank Thomas, baseball player
- 1970 - Tim Farron, British politician
- 1970 - Joseph Fiennes, English actor
- 1971 - Paul Bettany, English actor
- 1971 - Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, American singer (d. 2002)
- 1974 - Derek Webb, American singer and songwriter (Caedmon's Call)
- 1974 - Danny Wuerffel, American football player
- 1975 - Andre 3000, American musician (OutKast)
- 1975 - Jamie Oliver, British chef and television personality

Deaths


- 366 - Procopius, Roman usurper (executed)
- 866 - Ordoño I, King of Asturias
- 927 - Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
- 1444 - John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (b. 1404)
- 1508 - Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
- 1525 - Thomas Muentzer, German rebel leader
- 1541 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury (executed) (b. 1473)
- 1564 - John Calvin, French religious reformer (b. 1509)
- 1610 - François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
- 1661 - Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish religious dissident (executed) (b. 1607)
- 1675 - Gaspard Dughet, French painter (b. 1613)
- 1690 - Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (b. 1626)
- 1702 - Dominique Bouhours, French critic (b. 1628)
- 1707 - Marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1641)
- 1781 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist (b. 1716)
- 1797 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary and early socialist (b. 1760)
- 1831 - Jedediah Smith, American explorer (b. 1799)
- 1840 - Nicolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
- 1910 - Robert Koch, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1843)
- 1926 - Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet (b. 1904)
- 1960 - James Montgomery Flagg, American illustrator (b. 1877)
- 1964 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politician (b. 1889)
- 1986 - Isma'il Raji' al-Faruqi, Palestinian-born philosopher and comparative religion scholar (b. 1921)
- 1987 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
- 1989 - Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet (b. 1907)
- 1991 - Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (b. 1904)
- 1992 - Uncle Charlie Osborne, fiddler (b. 1890)
- 1993 - Mary Philbin, American actress (b. 1903
- 1993 - Werner Stocker, German actor (b. 1955)
- 2000 - Crawford Murray MacLehose of Beoch, British Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
- 2000 - Maurice Richard, Canadian hockey player (b. 1921)
- 2001 - Ramon Bieri, American actor (b. 1929)
- 2003 - Luciano Berio, Italian composer (b. 1925)

Holidays and observances


- Lag Ba'omer in Judaism (2005)
- Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church:
  - Venerable Bede
  - Julius
  - Pope John I
  - Hildebert
  - Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg
  - Eutropius

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/27 BBC: On This Day] ---- May 26 - May 28 - April 27 - June 27 – listing of all days ko:5월 27일 ms:27 Mei ja:5月27日 simple:May 27 th:27 พฤษภาคม

1964

:For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar).

Events

January


- January 1 - Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
- January 3 - Senator Barry Goldwater announces that he will seek the Republican nomination for President.
- January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the 15th century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I meet in Jerusalem.
- January 7 - A British firm, the Leyland Motor Corp., announces the sale of 450 buses to the Cuban government, challenging the United States blockade of Cuba.
- January 8 - In his first State-of-the-Union address, President Lyndon Johnson declares a "War on Poverty" in the United States.
- January 9 - Armed clashes between United States troops and Panamanian mobs in the Canal Zone precipitate a major international crisis and result in the deaths of 21 Panamanians and 4 U.S. soldiers.
- January 11 - United States Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous to one's health. First such statement from the U.S. government.
- January 12 - The predominantly Arab government of Zanzibar is overthrown by African nationalist rebels. A U.S. destroyer evacuates 61 U.S. citizens.
- January 12 - Terry C. Soto, Founder of PPI Enterprises of Houston, Texas, is born.
- January 13 - I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles released in the United States. It will become their first North American hit and the beginning of Beatlemania.
- January 16 - Hello Dolly! opens in New York City's St. James Theatre.
- January 16 - John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, resigns from the space program and announces the next day that he will seek the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from Ohio.
- January 18 - Esther Armstrong Scottish Landscape Artist born in Dingwall,Scotland. Plans to build the World Trade Center announced.
- January 20 - Meet the Beatles, the first Beatles album in the United States, is released.
- January 22 - Kenneth Kaunda inaugurated as the first President of Northern Rhodesia.
- January 23 - Thirteen years after its proposal and nearly two years after the measure had been passed by the United States Senate 77-16, the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the use of poll taxes in national elections, is ratified.
- January 23 - Arthur Miller's After the Fall opens on Broadway. A semi-autobiographical work, it will arouse controversy over his portrayal of late ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.
- January 27 - France and the People's Republic of China announce their decision to establish diplomatic relations.
- January 27 - Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me.), 66, announces her candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.
- January 28 - A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strays into East Germany is shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt. All three crew men are killed.
- January 29 - 1964 Winter Olympics open in Innsbruckand concludes on February 9. The Soviet Union launches two scientific satellites, Elektron I and II, from a single rocket.
- January 30 - The junta ruling South Vietnam since the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem is itself toppled from power in a bloodless coup led by Maj. Gen. Nguyen Khanh.
- January 30 - Ranger 6 is launched by NASA. Its mission is to carry television cameras and to crash-land on the moon.

February


- February 3 - In protests against alleged de-facto school racial segregation, black and Puerto Rican groups in New York City boycott public school.
- February 6 - Cuba cuts off the normal water supply to the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay in reprisal for U.S. seizure 4 days earlier of 4 Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida.
- February 7 - A jury trying Bryon De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers in June 1963 reports in Jackson, Mississippi that it was unable to agree on a verdict, resulting in a mistrial; The Beatles land in New York City.
- February 9 - The Beatles make their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The 1964 Winter Olympics concludes.
- February 11 - Greeks & Turks begin fighting in Limassol, Cyprus.
- February 11 - The Republic of China (Taiwan) drops diplomatic relations with France because of French recognition of the People's Republic of China.
- February 17 - In Wesberry v. Sanders 376 US 1 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.
- February 26 - John Glenn slips on a bathroom rug in his Columbus, Ohio apartment and hits his head on the bathtub, injuring his left inner ear, and prompting him (later that week) to withdraw from the race for the Senate nomination.
- February 27 - The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
- February 29 - President Johnson announces that the United States had developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 MPH and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet.

March


- March 4 - Jimmy Hoffa, President of the Teamsters, is convicted by a Federal jury of tampering with a Federal jury in 1962.
- March 4 – Malta gains independence.
- March 6 - Constantine II becomes King of Greece.
- March 8 - Malcolm X, suspended from the Nation of Islam, says in New York City that he is forming a black nationalist party.
- March 9 - In New York Times Co. v Sullivan 376 US 254 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States rules that under the First Amendment, speech criticizing political figures cannot be censored.
- March 9 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.
- March 10 - Soviet Union military forces shoot down an unarmed reconnaissance bomber that had strayed into East Germany; the three U.S. flyers parachute to safety.
- March 10 - The New Hampshire primary is won by Henry Cabot Lodge, Ambassador to South Vietnam.
- March 12 - Malcolm X withdraws from the Nation of Islam
- March 13 - 38 residents of a neighborhood in Queens, New York City fail to respond to the cries of Kitty Genovese, 28, as she is being stabbed to death. The incident will become notorious.
- March 14 - A jury in Dallas, Texas finds Jack Ruby guilty of killing John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
- March 20 - The precursor of the European Space Ag