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The Anglo-Mughal War (1686-1690)

Despite the fact that Jahangir had given the British East India company permission to build factories in Surat, ties between the company and the Mughals would remain strained and these ties would be sorely tested following the death of Jahangir. Shah Jahan, would be the next to assume the Mughal throne, after a brief battle of ascendency with his brother Shahryar Mirza, a contest that Shah Jahan would win. During the reign of Shah Jahan, the British East India Company would be left mostly to its own devices, to expand and propagate trade, while the Mughals were busy consolidating their empire that was under threat at the time from local sultanates that were trying to break free and assert their independence, and the Mughals would be forced to fight wars on numerous fronts. Following the death of Shah Jahan, his third son Aurangzeb would become emperor, and Aurangzeb would prove to be much more astute than his father and would successfully consolidate the Mughal Empire, including

Bombay - The Second Major British East India Company Trading Outpost In India

Approximately 91 years prior to the formation of the British East India Company, and 11 years after they reached Calicut, a Portuguese expedition landed on the Isle of Mahim, 1 of the 7 islands in the Bombay archipelago, in 1509. Realizing that the deep natural harbor was well suited to their needs, they sought an audience with the Sultan of Gujarat; Bombay was at the time under the control of the Gujarat Sultanate to seek permission to build a fort on the Isle of Mahim. In 1517 the commander of the Gujarat Sultanate on the island was defeated and the Portuguese acquired Mahim. The victory paved the way for a Portuguese expansion in Bombay and 9 years later the Portuguese established their first factory in Bassein. Following the building of the factory, some 2 years later, the reigning Sultan of Gujarat, Sultan Bahadur Shah, sent an emissary to the governor of Portuguese possessions in India, Nuna da Cunha, having suffered severe losses in the hands of the Mughals he was anxious to

Kalinga

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Kalinga was an Indian Kingdom, bordered to the east by the Bay of Bengal that included the whole of present day Odisha, parts of Chhattisgarh, and the northern part of Andhra Pradesh. The kingdom was well in existence when Chandragupta Maurya founded the Mauryan Empire. The kingdom of Kalinga is mentioned in the Mahabharata. The ancient kingdom of Kalinga according to the Mahabhrata was also located in present day Odisha, so it’s been there for some time. Its capital is given as Rajapura and the daughter of Chitrangada who was the king of Kalinga at the time was married to Duryodhana. The Kalinga lineage extents all the way back to the five adopted sons of King Vaali or as he was more commonly known, Bali Asura, a devout worshiper of Vishnu. While Chandragupta Maurya expanded the Mauryan Empire, from its capital, Pataliputra, in Bihar, an empire that would eventually cover the whole of north and central India, Kalinga remained more or less what it was, and the fact that Chandr

Madras - The First Major British East India Company Trading Outpost in India

In 1639 the British East India Company setup its first major trading outpost in India. There were in total three major trading outposts, Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The setting up of the Madras outpost was without bloodshed, and if anything, it was an astute acquisition. Madras was in fact the first major British East India Company trading outpost in the subcontinent. The history of Madras spans some 2,000 years and it was initially known as Puliyur Kottam. Much of its early history is written down in a series of manuscripts known as the Mackenzie Manuscripts or the Mackenzie Collection which codifies the oral history of the ancient city of Madras. At the time of the acquisition, Madras was known as Madraspatnam. The word Madraspatnam is a combination of two words, the word “Madras” which denotes the name of the town and the word “patnam” which means town, and the word “Madraspatnam” simply means the town of Madras or Madras town. Prior to the acquisition, the town was under the

A brief history of the Deccan Plateau

The Deccan Plateau is a plateau that is located in south-central India and covers four states, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka and bits of Tamilnadu and Kerala and it is bordered in the west by the Western Ghats and in the east by the Eastern Ghats and it is bordered further west by the Arabian Sea and further east by the Bay of Bengal. It covers an area of approximately 422,000 km. In the Vedas the area that is now known as the Deccan Plateau is referred to as Dakshinapatha. The name is most likely derived from the Sanskrit words “Dakshina” which means southern and “Patha” which means “the way” or “the road” and read together it would mean the southern path or the southern way and that to some extent tells us that the plateau was used as a road to the south. While there are very little records of indigenous ancient kingdoms in the Plateau, it would be fair to surmise that it came under the dominion of the Mauryan Empire, but there may also have been some i