Any photo you will find of Mohandas Gandhi will show a genial old man dressed as a common villager. He was indeed the opposite of physically imposing; but he made up for it with steely resolve and unwavering determination. Protesting for equality in South Africa, and then for Independence in India, he was arrested and imprisoned for many long years, but his speeches and actions resonated. They also made him a prime target for political extremists: no less than four attempts on his life were taken (though, granted, some may have been a heat-of-the moment response) before a radical Hindu succeeded.

On this day, January 30, in 1948, Nathuram Godse, a member of the Indian extremist-nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party, who were fighting deadly wars with Muslims, approached Gandhi on the way to evening prayer, pulled out his automatic Beretta, and shot the “Great Soul” Gandhi point blank seven times. Gandhi died almost instantly.

Godse was apprehended right after the attack, and ultimately tried with his co-conspirators. Shortly before he was hanged for his crime, he gave an interview to TIME magazine, in which he said Gandhi was a hypocrite. “Even after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims, [Gandhi] was happy,” he told a reporter. Referring to the massacres between Hindus and Muslims, he added that Gandhi “[D]id not follow [his principle of nonviolence] … Is his non-violence followed anywhere? Not in the least. Nowhere.”