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

The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb begins building the great Badshahi Mosque in Lahore

France by now has six fortified trading settlements around the coast of India, of which Pondicherry is the most important

Fort St William is built by the East India Company in the Ganges delta, and subsequently develops into Calcutta

The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Rai, commits his people to the five Ks, which become the outward signs of their group identity

The tenth Sikh guru, Gobind Rai, names as his successor the sacred book known as the Granth

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

The Persian ruler Nadir Shah enters Delhi and removes much of the accumulated treasure of the Mughal empire

French forces capture the British East India Company's fort of Madras

Robert Clive prevails over the French after holding out during the seven-week siege of Arcot in southern India

122 people die after being locked overnight in a small room in Calcutta, in an incident that becomes known as the Black Hole of Calcutta

Robert Clive defeats the nawab of Bengal at the battle of Plassey, and places his own man on the throne

A Sikh maharajah, Ranjit Singh, captures Lahore and makes it his capital in his campaign to unify the Punjab

Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore, is killed fighting the British at Seringapatam

Ranjit Singh, maharaja of the Punjab, agrees an eastern boundary between himself and the British in the Treaty of Amritsar

British officers, hoping to shoot a tiger, come across the forgotten Buddhist caves of Ajanta

The Sikh maharajah of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, conquers Kashmir, beginning a century and a half of Sikh dominance in the region

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

The first Anglo-Sikh war ends with the Treaty of Lahore, by which Jammu and Kashmir are ceded to the British

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

After being besieged for five months in Lucknow, the remnants of the British garrison finally escape

Lucknow is retaken by the British, nearly a year after it fell to the rebels

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