History of the British Raj
The history of the British Raj refers to the period of British rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947, when the British provinces of India were partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the "Dominion of India" and the "Dominion of Pakistan", leaving the princely states to choose between them. The two new dominions later became the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (the eastern half of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh). The province of Burma in the eastern region of the Indian Empire had been made a separate colony in 1937 and became independent in 1948.
20th-century events
In India, Mahatma Gandhi became a global icon for his non-violent struggle to achieve Indian independence. This was achieved in 1947 with the end of British rule in India and the partition of the territory into modern day India and Pakistan, which would later also further divide, leading to the creation of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1971. Elsewhere in Asia, The United States granted independence to the Philippines, its major Pacific possession in 1946. In French Indochina, armed insurrections forced the French out in the early 1950s, leading to the formation of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.