Rabisarani

Raja Ram Mohan Roy (22nd May, 1772 – 27th September, 1833) was a founder (with Dwarkanath Tagore and other Bengali Brahmins) of the Brahmo Samaj movement in 1828 which engendered the Brahmo Samaj, an influential Indian socio-religious reform movement. His influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration and education as well as religion. He is best known for his efforts to abolish the practice of sati, the Hindu funeral practice in which the widow was compelled to sacrifice herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. It was he who first introduced the word "Hinduism" into the English language in 1816. For his diverse contributions to society, Raja Ram Mohan Roy is regarded as one of the most important figures in the Bengal Renaissance. His efforts to protect Hinduism and Indian rights by participating in British government earned him the title "The Father of the Indian Renaissance"

Lalon Fakir (c. 1774–1890), was a Bengali Baul saint, mystic, songwriter, social reformer and thinker. In Bengali culture he has become an icon of religious tolerance whose songs inspired and influenced many poets and social and religious thinkers including Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Allen Ginsberg - though, as he "rejected all distinctions of caste and creed", he was both praised and criticized in his lifetime and after his death. His disciples mostly live in Bangladesh and West Bengal. He founded the institute known as Lalon Akhdah in Cheuriya, about 2 km. from Kushtia railway station. He is also regarded as the founder of the Baul music.
The Baul are a group of mystic minstrels from Bengal which includes Indian State of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh. Bauls constitute both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition. Bauls are a very heterogeneous group, with many sects, but their membership mainly consists of Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslims. They can often be identified by their distinctive clothes and musical instruments. Not much is known of their origin. Baul music had a great influence on Rabindranath Tagore's poetry and on his music.

Birth of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.

Law banning Sati practice in Bengal Presidency is passed by an appeal by Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Lord William Bentinck, Governor of Bengal.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa is born.

Postal service is started. First railway is established between Bombay and Thane.

The Santhal rebellion (sometimes referred to as the Sonthal rebellion), commonly known as Santal Hool was a native rebellion in present day Jharkhand, in eastern India against both the British colonial authority and upper caste zamindari system by the Santal people. It started on 30th June, 1855 and on 10th November, 1855 martial law was proclaimed which lasted until 3rd January, 1856 when martial law was suspended and the movement was brutally ended by troops loyal to the British Raj. The rebellion was led by the four Murmu Brothers - Seedo, Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak is born.

The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, also Act XV, 1856, enacted on 25th July, 1856, legalized the remarriage of Hindu widows in all jurisdictions of India under East India Company rule. In order to protect both what it considered family honour and family property, upper-caste Hindu society had long disallowed the remarriage of widows, even child and adolescent ones, all of whom were expected to live a life of austerity and abnegation. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856, enacted in response to the campaign of Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, provided legal safeguards against loss of certain forms of inheritance for a remarrying Hindu widow, though, under the Act, the widow forsook any inheritance due her from her deceased husband. Especially targeted in the act were Hindu child widows whose husbands had died before consummation of marriage.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company's army on 10th May, 1857, in the cantonment of the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region.[3] The rebellion posed a considerable threat to East India Company power in that region,[4] and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20th June, 1858.[3] The rebellion is also known as India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Rebellion of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion and the Sepoy Mutiny.
Established first three University of Mumbai, University of Madras and University of Calcutta in India

The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (and who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India), and lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as a province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its own independence in 1948.

Bipin Chandra Pal is born