Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated 70 years ago on January 30, 1948. Here are 10 key dates in his life:

- 1869: Born on October 2 as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi at Porbandar in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

- 1883: Married off by his parents to Kasturba Makanji. The couple are both aged 13 and go on to have four children.

- 1888-1891: Studies law in London.

- 1893-1915: Works as a lawyer in South Africa. In 1913 carries out his first non-violent action, the Transvaal march, a protest against the ban on Indian immigration.

- 1922: Having become the main moral authority of the Indian National Congress party, he calls for civil disobedience against the British colonial power. Arrested for subversion and spends two years in prison.

- 1930: Leads the famous Salt March -- a non-violent protest against the state salt monopoly -- which covers 350 kilometres (217 miles) from his ashram in Ahmedabad in the northwest to the Indian Ocean. He is arrested with tens of thousands of people.

- 1932: In jail, he goes on hunger strike to protest the segregation of the "untouchables", the name for people who fall outside the Indian caste system.

- 1942: Calls for a general strike to force the British to leave India. Arrested and jailed until 1944.

- 1947: India's independence proclaimed. Gandhi fights in vain against the partition of Hindus and Muslims into two separate states, India and Pakistan.

- 1948: Assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu extremist. Two million Indians attend his funeral.