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Bangladesh declares independence

Name: Bangladesh declares independence
Start: 1971-03-26
Location: Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhaka · Dhaka, Bangladesh · 1971-03-26

Independence was declared as the Pakistani army began Operation Searchlight in Dhaka; the war lasted nine months.

The record

Date	1971-03-26
Place	Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Coordinates	23.73, 90.4 (city-level precision)
Scope	World-historic
Sources	Wikipedia
Added	2026-08-14 · source: editors

Go deeper. This page records the place, the date and what is tied to them — the full story is told better elsewhere: Wikipedia. What you will not find there is this location’s other time layers, the map, and the memories readers add below.

Coordinates are given at city level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.

Finding photographs

Every one of these is a search, not a guess: the event is documented, so the pictures exist somewhere. Start here.

Wikimedia Commons — freely licensed images, with the licence stated on every file. This is the only source we republish from.
The reference article — its own illustrations, and its citations to archives.
Image search filtered to reusable licences — useful for tracing which institution holds a picture.
National and municipal archives of Bangladesh, and the picture desks of newspapers published there at the time.

Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.

Footage

Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.

Time layers at this place

One place, several moments in time. This location has 4 recorded time layers between 1971 and 1971 — slide through them:

1971

Bangladesh declares independence

1971

The surrender at the Race Course

1971

7th March Speech of Bangabandhu

1971

Ramna massacre

1971 — Bangladesh declares independence this page
1971 — The surrender at the Race Course
1971 — 7th March Speech of Bangabandhu
1971 — Ramna massacre

Seeded by the editors. This entry was compiled by us from public reference works and is labelled as such, not presented as a reader’s contribution. Sources are listed on the entry. If you know more, or we have it wrong, tell us — corrections are published.

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What readers have added

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Nearby in Asia

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