The Indus cities were planned, drained and standardised more than four thousand years ago, and the subcontinent's later empires, faiths and sciences shaped half of Asia. These articles begin with the Indus Valley and follow the region's cities and rulers.
Ibn Battuta met Muhammad bin Tughluq on June 8, 1334, and served as qadi at 12,000 dinars a year. In 1342 he left for China and was wrecked at Calicut.
· 1334A Herat envoy reached Vijayanagara in April 1443 and described seven walls, rose bazaars and elephant stables. The city was sacked after January 23, 1565.
· 1443Vasco 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.
· 1757A wooden tiger mauls a European; a crank plays an organ inside. Taken from Tipu Sultan's palace when Seringapatam fell in May 1799; in London since 1800.
· 1799India's first passenger train left Bori Bunder at 3.30 pm on April 16, 1853. Behind it stood a 5 per cent guarantee of 1849 and a pass finished in 1868.
· 1853Andrew Waugh's 1856 letter to the Royal Geographical Society named Peak XV "Mont Everest" at 29,002 feet and thanked one assistant, J. Hennessey.
· 1856Sepoys at Meerut rose on May 10, 1857 over greased cartridges and marched to Delhi. Parliament took India from the Company by an Act of August 2, 1858.
· 1857The House of Lords put six death estimates for the 1876-1878 Indian famine on record, from 600,000 to 6 million, and debated Temple's relief wage.
· 1877Waldemar Haffkine injected himself with 10 cc of plague vaccine on January 10, 1897, in Bombay. A 1902 accident at Mulkowal cost him his post until 1907.
· 1897Gandhi's letter of March 2, 1930 told Lord Irwin he would 'disregard the provisions of the salt laws.' The march left March 12; a pact came in March 1931.
· 1930Britain set June 1948 as the deadline on February 20, 1947; the June 3 plan cut it to August 15; commissions formed June 30 signed the line on August 12.
· 1947Frank Kingdon-Ward was camped at Rima in Tibet when the August 15, 1950 earthquake struck. Catalogues give 8.6 to 8.8; no single death toll exists.
· 1950A coded cable told The Times of the first Everest ascent, and the paper printed it on the coronation morning, June 2, 1953.
· 1953On April 6, 1971, Archer Blood cabled that Washington was 'bending over backwards to placate' Pakistan. Niazi surrendered at Dhaka on December 16.
· 1971Papers count Bhopal's immediate dead at 2,000, 2,500 or 3,800; the 1989 settlement of US$470 million rested on 3,000; 15,310 death claims paid by 2003.
· 1984
