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March 12, 1930 - Gandhi's Salt March began from Ahmadabad, India, with 76 followers to protest the salt tax. Great Britain's Salt Acts prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple of the Indian diet.

Citizens were forced to buy it from the British, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also exerted a heavy salt tax. Defying the Salt Acts, Gandhi reasoned, would be a simple way for many Indians to break an unjust law nonviolently (civil disobedience), increasing the pressure for independence from the British Empire.

By the time Gandhi had covered the 241 miles to the coastal city of Dandi on the Arabian Sea, the number of marchers had grown into the thousands.