Mahatma Gandhi assassinated

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. If you'd like to read a little about his life, the BBC History site has a very readable biography of the man. It also contains links to articles on his historical context.

You may have noticed that I've used to talk about his death. Remember that in English, we only use "assassinate" (and its nouns assassination -- the event-- and assassin -- the person) when we are talking about prominant figures: politicians, stars, business leaders.

For a homicide (a technical police and legal term) involving your ordinary man on the street, however, we would use "kill" or "murder".