The History of South Asia

South Asia enters this timeline as a mosaic of kingdoms about to be transformed. The Delhi sultanate brings new rulers and new faiths to the north while Vijayanagara flourishes in the south, and then the Mughals build one of the richest empires on Earth, raising the Taj Mahal as its most famous signature. European trading companies arrive as merchants and stay as rulers; by the nineteenth century the British Raj governs a fifth of humanity from Calcutta and Delhi. This timeline follows the long independence struggle, Gandhi's campaigns of mass nonviolence, and the midnight freedom of 1947 that came joined to partition. The events below run era by era, each one linked to a full page with its date and context.