History of Mughal Rule in India

  • Mar 3, 1526

    In a battle at Panipat Babur defeats the sultan of Delhi, launching the Mughal empire in India

    In a battle at Panipat Babur defeats the sultan of Delhi, launching the Mughal empire in India
  • Mar 3, 1530

    The first Mughal emperor, Babur, dies in India and is succeeded by his son, Humayun

  • Mar 3, 1556

    Humayun dies and Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors, inherits the throne at the age of thirteen

  • On the death of Akbar, his son Jahangir succeeds to the Mughal throne

  • The British East India establishes a 'factory' (a secure warehouse for the storing of Indian goods) at Surat, on the west coast

  • Sir Thomas Roe, the first British ambassador to India, arrives at the court of the Mughal emperor Jahangir

  • The British East India Company completes the construction of Fort St George in Madras

  • For the final years of his life the emperor Shah Jahan is held a prisoner, by his son Aurangzeb, in Agra's Red Fort

  • England's East India Company is granted a lease on Bombay by Charles II, who has received it from his Portuguese bride

  • The death of Aurangzeb introduces the long period of decline of the Mughal empire

  • The first Anglo-Sikh war breaks out between Sikh forces in the Punjab and encroaching forces of Britain's East India Company

  • The second Anglo-Sikh war begins when a British army invades the Punjab to suppress a local uprising

  • A British victory at the Battle of Gujarat effectively ends the second Anglo-Sikh war, and is followed by annexation of the Punjab

  • Animal fat on a new issue of cartridges sparks off the Indian Mutiny, also know as the First War of Indian Independence

  • The end of the Indian Mutiny is followed by brutal British retaliation

  • The India Act places India under the direct control of the British government, ending the rule of the East India Company

  • The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II, is deposed by the British and exiled to Rangoon, in Burma