Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869.When he was thirteen he was married to Kasturbia who was also thirteen. Gandhi’s family was strictly vegetarian but he ate goat meat a friend gave him and immediately felt sick. Later that night he dreamed that a goat was bleating in his stomach. He ate meat six other times until he decided it was not worth it. When Gandhi was sixteen his father died.
Whatever Gandhi did for humanity he didn’t think it was enough. “To serve is my religion” he said. When the Boer War started in 1899, Gandhi had sympathy with the Boers, but he stayed on the side of the British. He got together 1100 Indians to start a British ambulance corps. In India, in 1904, Gandhi founded an Indian newspaper called the Indian Opinion. In 1906 when the Zulus rebelled, Gandhi formed another ambulance corps. In 1906 he also took a vow of celibacy. On July 1907, Indians picketed the offices at which they were supposed to register and when only about 500 of the 13,000 Indians complied with the new registration law the authorities decided to act. The authorities arrested leaders of the Satyagraha Movement, which included Gandhi. Gandhi’s first time in jail was short. Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign challenged legislation barring Indian immigration. He went to jail and served food to the other prisoners. He was set free in December 1908. On July 1914, England entered World War I and Gandhi again offered to start an ambulance corps, but Indians opposed it.
On January 30, 1948 Gandhi held an outdoor prayer meeting. As he walked through the crowd to sit on the platform he put his hands on his forehead, which was a traditional Hindu blessing. At about 5:10 pm Nathuram Vinayak Godse rose and fired his pistol three times. At the first shot Gandhi faltered, with the second shot his hands fell to his sides, and with the third shot he crumpled to the ground and died. His last words were Hey Rama which means, “Oh God.”