Cool Facts
Cool Facts About Mahatma Gandhi
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times.
Gandhi wrote a lot. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi have 50,000 pages!
He was the 1930 Time Magazine Man of the Year.
His birthday is a national holiday in India. The United Nations has declared his birthday as the International Day of Non-violence, with effect from 2007.
He studied law in the University College of London in the year 1888. After that, he returned to India, making attempts to start his own law practice. He later took up a job in a law firm in South Africa
There were several incidents where Gandhi faced discrimination in South Africa, due to his dark skin colour. These moments inspired him to fight for equality.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was not born with the title Mahatma. He was given the title to him by the Nobel Prize winning Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.
His photo on the 100 rupee currency note is not a drawing, but a mirror image of his photo captured in 1946. It was printed on the Indian rupee after 1996.
He used to walk about 18 kms in a day.
Although he travelled around the world, he never travelled in a plane.
There are 53 major roads in India and 48 major roads outside India named after Mahatama Gandhi
Gandhi's civil disobedience was inspired by American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi read his famous essay "Civil Disobedience," while Gandhi was in prison.
Great Britain, the country against whom he fought for independence, released a stamp honouring him, 21 years after his death
Gandhiji served in the army during the Boer war – that’s when he realized the horrors of war.
Mahatma Gandhi corresponded with a lot of people – Tolstoy, Einstein and Hitler were among the many
He never held an official position in any political body during the final years of his life
Mahatma Gandhi spoke English with an Irish accent, for one of his first teachers was an Irishman
He was only 13 years old when he married his 14-year-old bride Kasturba in 1882.
The funeral procession of Mahatma Gandhi was 8 kilometers long
Most relics of Gandhiji including the clothes he wore when he was shot are still preserved in Gandhi Museum, Madurai
Gandhi, an epic historical drama film based on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi won the Academic Award for best motion picture in 1982.
Steve Jobs was a fan of Mahatma Gandhi – Steve Jobs used to wear round glasses, to pay his tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.