On June 3, 1947, Viscount Lord Mountbatten, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan. At the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947, India became an independent nation. This was preceded by Nehru's famous speech titled 'Tryst with Destiny'.
"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance ... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."
It's interesting to note that there are some historians who tie together Britain's loss in the American Revolution to its desire to enforce British rule in India. Also interesting to think about what would have happened if the French Revolution hadn't occurred when it did. In South India, the ruler of Mysore (Tippu Sultan) was relying on promised help from Louis XVI to defend them from the British -- it took them 6 months to hear about the revolution and that Louis was no more.
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