South Asia in the early modern world (1500 – 1800). Oceans became highways, gunpowder empires rose, and the scientific revolution began. These articles cover the three centuries in which the world's regions first became one system.
Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on May 20, 1498, with cloth, hats, sugar and honey; the Zamorin's officers laughed and he left with a letter asking for gold.
· 1498Akbar ruled Mughal India from 1556 to 1605 by ranking Hindu and Muslim officers in one service, ending the jizya tax in 1564 and outranking his clerics.
· 1575Thomas Roe first saw Jahangir at Ajmer on January 10, 1616, with a coach and virginals. He left in 1618 with farmans, not the sealed treaty he had drafted.
· 1616Mumtaz Mahal died at Burhanpur on June 17, 1631. Indian government sites date the Taj Mahal to 1631-1648 and 1653; its dome calligraphy is signed 1638.
· 1632Letters from Ram Singh's staff, a Mughal chronicle of 1710 and a Maratha bakhar give Shivaji's 1666 escape from Agra different dates and routes home.
· 1666National Army Museum dates the Battle of Plassey to June 23, 1757. A 1772-73 inquiry then examined the payments Robert Clive took from Mir Jafar.
· 1757
