Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan, also known as the The Tiger of Mysore (December 10, 1750, Devanhalli – May 4, 1799, Srirangapatnam) was the second son of Haider Ali by his second wife, Fatima or Fakr-un-nissa. He ruled the Kingdom of Mysore from the time of his father's death in 1782 until his own demise in 1799. Tipu was a learned man and an able soldier. He was reputed to be a good poet. He was also a strongly religious man, and practised the Sunni branch of Islam. He was also a fanatic muslim and massacred thousands of Hindus, and considerable number of Christians in North Kerala, Coorg, Mangalore, and other parts of Karnataka. He destroyed about 8000 temples and churches in his invasion of Malabar and converted thousands of terrified villagers to Islam under the thread of death. His atrocities are the stuff of legend in North Kerala to this day. He continued the war against the British begun by his father. He helped ensure the defeat of the British in the Second Mysore War, and negotiated the Treaty of Mangalore with them. However, he was unsuccessful in preventing his neighbours allying themselves with the British, and was defeated in the Third and Fourth Mysore Wars by their combined forces. He died defending his capital Srirangapatnam, on May 4, 1799.

Nawab Sirajuddaula

The British with their superior naval power support from home were the next who like the numerous invaders and adventurers of the past would establish their dominion in India. The diplomatic moves of East India Company were clever. The favorable conditions created by the disintegration of the Mughal empire invited the English to seek political power in India. The political aspirations of the company bore fruit from Bengal. Owing to the incompetence of Siraj-ud daula the Nawab of Bengal, he had lost the loyalty of his nobles who conspired against him. The misuse of the privileges given to the English and the fortification of the settlement invoked the displeasure of the Nawab who ordered their demolition. The inhuman act of the Nawabs subordinate resulting in the Black hole tragedy resulted in involvement of Robert Clive and Admiral Watson in an attempt to subdue the Nawab. After the capture of Calcutta by Robert Clive he entered into a treaty which proved the only advantageous solution for both at present. The diplomatic designs of Clive bore fruit when he learnt of the discontented nobles of the Nawabs who were ready to go against the authority of the Nawab .On the 23rd of the June 1757 the armies of the Nawab Siraj-ud-daula and Robert Clive met in a battle at Plassey. The Nawab's nobles who deflected as decided with the English did not support the Nawab, leading to his defeat. This was the major achievement of the English that was to act as the foundation of British rule in India. The English put Mir Jafar as the Nawab with the jurisdiction of government under the Company's control. The company got the territories around Calcutta. It raised the prestige of the company who now was able to use this to influence the French and their support at home. It also started a political gamble by the company officials who now conspired against Mir Jafar and promised the throne to Mir qasim in return for money. Mir jafar was disposed by the English and Mir qasim was given the administration of Bengal. Mir qasim knew well the designs of the English. He was an able administrator and sought to improve the finance of the state, while meeting the demands of the company. His quarrels with the company over duties and articles and trade exposed his intention to break off from the yoke of British dominance. This ultimately resulted in the battle of Buxar in 1764. A fierce battle resulted. The superior military power of the English had confirmed the English victory and thus they became the masters of Bengal and now were the sole contenders for the control of the whole country.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, the son of Carlo and Letizia Bonaparte. Through his military exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from obscurity to become Napoleon I, Empereur des Francais (Emperor of the French). He is both a historical figure and a legend—and it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. The events of his life fired the imaginations of great writers, film makers, and playwrights whose works have done much to create the Napoleonic legend.

Emperor Napoleon proved to be an excellent civil administrator. One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The new law codes—seven in number—incorporated some of the freedoms gained by the people of France during the French revolution, including religious toleration and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized France's government by appointing prefects to administer regions called departments, into which France was divided.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, one of the greatest Muslim educationists, writers and reformers.

Sir Syed was born at a time when the continued existence of Muslims in the Sub-continent as a separate entity was in serious jeopardy. For nearly half a century he struggled against the apathy and dispondency that had settled upon the Muslims in the wake of their defeat in the War of Independence of 1857. He finally took them out of the abyss, gave them a national identity , enthused them with hope, brought clarity to their perception and thought and put them on the road to progress and freedom.

In 1875 he founded the Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College at Aligarh aimed at creating a confluence of traditional learning and modem sciences. It was raised to the status of Muslim University in 1920.

Mahmood Ghaznavi

Until the rise of the west, India was possibly the richest country in the world. Mahmud began a series of seventeen raids into northwestern India at the end of the 10th century. Nonetheless, he did not attempt to rule Indian territory except for the Punjab, which was his gateway to India, as Ghazni lay in present day Afghanistan.

In 1001, Mahmud attacked the Hindushahi Kingdom. 15,000 Hindu soldiers were killed. Jaipal was defeated and captured. He was presented before Mahmud with his 15 other relatives; 500,000 enslaved persons were also brought along. Mahmud looted all his wealth. He received 250,000 Dinars to free Jaipal. About 5,00,000 Indians were taken to Ghazni as slaves. Though Jaipal was freed, but he refused to survive his disgrace. He cast himself upon a funeral pyre and died.

The most famous and terrible invasion launched by Mahmud was his sixteenth, against the Somnath Temple in Gujrat, western India. The Somnath temple was very famous for its treasures. The brave Hindu Rajputs came forward to defend the temple.

After three days, the invaders succeeded and entered into the Somnath temple. Mahmud ordered his men to destroy the sacred idol, Linga. He looted the treasures of the temple. It is said that he got wealth worth 20-million Dinars, eighty times the already huge sum he had gained on his first invasion.

On April 30, 1030, Mahmud died in Ghazni, at the age of 59 years. He had contracted malaria during his last invasion. This turned to tuberculosis.

Mohammed bin Qasim

Mohammed bin Qasim was the first person who brought the religion of Islam to the subcontinent. Entering through Sindh, which is called 'the Gateway of Islam', Mohammed bin Qasim was only 17 years old when he was leading the army that was sent to recuperate goods and prisoners, which the Hindu emperor Raja Dahir had illegally confiscated. It was in the year 711 A.D. that the Iraqi army was sent on this difficult expedition, which they managed to win with their wit and gumption and Mohammed bin Qasim became the first Muslim ruler of Sindh. Under his phenomenal rule, the element of tolerance was inculcated in the religious regard of the society, where inter-religious and cultural contacts were encouraged. Not only that but his reign also marked the emergence of two chief states namely the Emirates of Al-Mansurah(which was situated in Sindh) and Multan, which is another important historical city

Shahjahan great Mughal Emperor

The third son of Emperor Jahangir, Shah Jahan was born at Lahore on Jan. 5, 1592, and was given the name of Khurram. During his father's reign he distinguished himself in many military campaigns, especially in Mewar (1615), the Deccan (1617 and 1621), and Kangra (1618). During Jahangir's closing years, Shah Jahan came into open conflict with Empress Nur Jahan, but his rebellion against his father, in 1622, was unsuccessful. On the death of Jahangir on Oct. 29, 1627, disputes for the succession broke out, and Shah Jahan emerged successful. He was proclaimed emperor at Agra on Feb. 4, 1628.

Shah Jahan (1592-1666) was the fifth Mogul emperor of India. During his reign, from 1628 to 1658, the Mogul Empire reached its zenith in prosperity and luxury. He is remembered as the builder of the Taj Mahal.

Graham Bell

A pioneer in the field of telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved to Ontario, and then to the United States, settling in Boston, before beginning his career as an inventor. Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone. News of his invention quickly spread throughout the country, even throughout Europe. By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City.
Bell imagined great uses for his telephone, like this model from the 1920s, but would he ever have imagined telephone lines being used to transmit video images? Since his death in 1922, the telecommunication industry has undergone an amazing revolution. Today, non-hearing people are able to use a special display telephone to communicate. Fiber optics are improving the quality and speed of data transmission. Actually, your ability to access this information relies upon telecommunications technology. Bell's "electrical speech machine" paved the way for the Information Superhighway.

Marconi

Radio waves were known as 'Hertzian Waves' when Marconi began experimenting in 1894. A few years earlier Heinrich Hertz had produced and detected the waves across his laboratory. Marconi's achievement was to produce and detect the waves over long distances, laying the foundations for what today we know as radio.

Marconi repeated Hertz's experiments in the villa attics. Hertzian waves were produced by sparks in one circuit and detected in another circuit a few metres away. Marconi could soon detect signals over several kilometres and this led him to try and interest the Italian Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.

He was unsuccessful, but in 1896 his cousin, Henry Jameson-Davis, arranged an introduction to Nyilliam Preece, Engineer-in-Chief of the British Post Office. Encouraging demonstrations in London and on Salisbury Plain followed and in 1897 Marconi obtained a patent and established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal CompanyLimited, which opened the world's first radio factory at Chelmsford, England in 1898.Experiments and demonstrations continued. Queen Victoria at Osborne House received bulletins by radio about the health of the Prince of Wales, convalescent on the Royal Yacht off Cowes. In 1901 signals were received across the Atlantic. Broadcasting as we know it was still in the future - the BBC was established in 1922 - but Marconi had achieved his aim of turning Hertz's laboratory demonstration into a practical means of communication and established in Chelmsford the Company which still bears his name.

VASCO da GAMA

The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama led an expedition at the end of the 15th century that opened the sea route to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
He was born about 1460 at Sines. He was a gentleman at court when he was chosen to lead the expedition to India.
Many years of Portuguese exploration down the West African coast had been rewarded when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. The Portuguese then planned to send a fleet to India for spices and to outflank the Muslims in Africa. Vasco da Gama was placed in command of the expedition.
Four ships left Lisbon on July 8, 1497--the Sao Gabriel, on which da Gama sailed, the Sao Rafael, the Berrio, and a storeship. They stopped in the Cape Verde Islands; from there they did not follow the coast, as earlier expeditions had, but stood well out to sea. They reached the Cape of Good Hope region on November 7.
The ships rounded the Cape on November 22. The expedition stopped on the East African coast, broke up the storeship, and reached Mozambique on Mar. 2, 1498. There they were assumed to be Muslims, and the sultan of Mozambique supplied them with pilots, who guided them on their journey northward. They stopped in Mombasa and Malindi before sailing to the east.
They crossed the Indian Ocean in 23 days, aided by the Indian pilot Ibn Majid, and reached Calicut on May 20, 1498. The local ruler, the Zamorin, welcomed the Portuguese, who at first thought that the Indians, actually Hindus, were Christians.
After one further stop on the Indian coast, the Portuguese set out to return with a load of spices. They took three months to recross the Indian Ocean, however, and so many men died of scurvy that one of the ships, the Sao Rafael, was burned for lack of a crew. The expedition made a few stops in East Africa before rounding the Cape of Good Hope on Mar. 20, 1499. The ships were separated off West Africa in a storm and reached Portugal at different times. Da Gama stopped in the Azores and finally reached Lisbon on Sept. 9, 1499.
Da Gama's success led to the dispatch of another Portuguese fleet, commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral. Some of the men Cabral left in India were massacred, so King Manuel ordered da Gama to India again. He was given the title of admiral and left Portugal in February 1502 with 20 ships. Da Gama's mission was a success, and the fleet returned to Lisbon in October 1503.
Da Gama then settled in Portugal, married, and raised a family. He may have served as an advisor to the Portuguese crown and was made a count in 1519. King John III sent him to India in 1524 as viceroy, but he soon became ill and died in Cochin on Dec. 24, 1524.
Vasco de Gama was an important explorer and made a very important trip around the tip of Africa. He had a hard voyage, but made it back successfully. He was brave and a good leader.

Marco Polo

In 1260, the brothers and Venetian merchants Niccolo and Matteo Polo traveled east from Europe. In 1265, they arrived at Kaifeng, the capital of Kublai Khan's (also known as the Great Khan) Mongol Empire. In 1269, the brothers returned to Europe with a request from Khan for the Pope to send one hundred missionaries to the Mongol Empire, supposedly to help convert the Mongols to Christianity. The Khan's message was ultimately relayed to the Pope but he did not send the requested missionaries.
Upon arriving in Venice, Nicolo discovered that his wife had died, leaving the care of a son, Marco (born in 1254 and thus fifteen years old), in his hands. In 1271, the two brothers and Marco began to trek eastward and in 1275 met the Great Khan.
Khan liked the youthful Marco and conscripted him into service for the Empire. Marco served in several high-level government positions, including as ambassador and as the governor of the city of Yangzhou. While the Great Khan enjoyed having the Polos as his subjects and diplomats, Khan eventually consented to allow them to leave the Empire, as long as they would escort a princess who was scheduled to wed a Persian king.
The three Polos left the Empire in 1292 with the princess, a fleet of fourteen large boats, and 600 other passengers from a port in southern China. The armada sailed through Indonesia to Sri Lanka and India and onto its final destination at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Supposedly, only eighteen people survived from the original 600, including the Princess who could not wed her intended fiancee because he had died, so she married his son instead.
The three Polos returned to Venice and Marco joined the army to fight against the city-state of Genoa. He was captured in 1298 and imprisoned in Genoa. While in prison for two years, he dictated an account of his travels to a fellow prisoner named Rustichello. Shortly thereafter, The Travels of Marco Polo was published in French.
Though Polo's book exaggerates places and cultures (and some scholars believe he never went as far east as China but only described places other travelers had been to), his book was widely published, translated into many languages, and thousands of copies were printed.
Polo's book includes fanciful accounts of men with tails and cannibals seem to be around every corner. The book is somewhat a geography of Asian provinces. It is divided into chapters covering specific regions and Polo delves into the politics, agriculture, military power, economy, sexual practices, burial system, and religions of each area. Polo brought the ideas of paper currency and coal to Europe. He also included second-hand reports of areas that he had not visited, such as Japan and Madagascar.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus (c. 1451 – 20 May 1506) was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. With his four voyages of discovery and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World." Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe, he was preceded by at least one other group, the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who built a temporary settlement 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows, Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans. The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.
Academic consensus is that Columbus was born in Genoa, though there are other theories. The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. The original name in 15th century Genoese language was Christoffa Corombo. The name is rendered in modern Italian as Cristoforo Colombo, in Portuguese as Cristóvão Colombo (formerly Christovam Colom) and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.
Columbus's initial 1492 voyage came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. In this sociopolitical climate, Columbus's far-fetched scheme won the attention of Isabella I of Castile. Severely underestimating the circumference of the Earth, he estimated that a westward route from Iberia to the Indies would be shorter and more direct than the overland trade route through Arabia. If true, this would allow Spain entry into the lucrative spice trade — heretofore commanded by the Arabs and Italians. Following his plotted course, he instead landed within the Bahamas Archipelago at a locale he named San Salvador. Mistaking the North-American island for the East-Asian mainland, he referred to its inhabitants as "Indios".
The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is observed as Columbus Day on October 12 in Spain and throughout the Americas, except that in the United States it is observed on the second Monday in October.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. "As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent," he wrote James Madison, "it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles."
Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.
He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him.
From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.
When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.
He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, "we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn." Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies--he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President.
He did not infringe upon the policy making powers that he felt the Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.
To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances.
Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.