Babur Wins the First Battle of Panipat

April 21, 1526

With twelve thousand men and twenty small cannon, the Timurid exile Babur faced Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's hundred thousand warriors and war elephants on the plain of Panipat. Artillery panicked the elephants, which trampled their own lines. By sundown Babur held Delhi and had founded the Mughal Empire. His memoir describes the battle with characteristic candor, noting the terror of war elephants and his careful deployment of chained carts for gunners.