Rani Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, was the Maharani consort of the princely state of Jhansi in Maratha Empire from 1843 to 1853 by marriage to Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar. She was one of the leading figures in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, who became a national hero and symbol of resistance to the British rule in India for Indian nationalists.
Major-General Sir Henry Havelock was a British general who is particularly associated with India and his recapture of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1819) was the final and decisive conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha territory by British East India Company troops, and although the British were outnumbered, the Maratha army was decimated. The troops were led by Governor General Hastings, supported by a force under General Thomas Hislop. Operations began against the Pindaris, a band of Muslim mercenaries and Marathas from central India.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859. Its name is contested, and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, and the First War of Independence.
Nana Saheb Peshwa II, born as Dhondu Pant, was an Indian Peshwa of the Maratha empire, aristocrat and fighter, who led the rebellion in Cawnpore (Kanpur) during the 1857 rebellion against the East India Company. As the adopted son of the exiled Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao II, Nana Saheb believed that he was entitled to a pension from the Company, but as he was denied recognition under Lord Dalhousie's doctrine of lapse, the Peshwa started the rebellion. He forced the British garrison in Kanpur to surrender, then murdered the survivors, gaining control of the city for a few days. After a British force recaptured Kanpur, he fled to Nepal, where he died in September 1859 during a tiger hunt.
Events in the year 1857 in India.
The siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defence of the British Residency within the city of Lucknow from rebel sepoys during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. After two successive relief attempts had reached the city, the defenders and civilians were evacuated from the Residency, which was then abandoned.
The siege of Cawnpore was a key episode in the Indian rebellion of 1857. The besieged East India Company forces and civilians in Cawnpore were unprepared for an extended siege and surrendered to rebel forces under Nana Sahib in return for a safe passage to Allahabad. However, their evacuation from Cawnpore turned into a massacre, and most of the men were killed. As an East India Company rescue force from Allahabad approached Cawnpore, 120 British women and children captured by the Sepoy forces were killed in what came to be known as the Bibighar Massacre, their remains being thrown down a nearby well in an attempt to hide the evidence. Following the recapture of Cawnpore and the discovery of the massacre, the angry Company forces engaged in widespread retaliation against captured rebel soldiers and local civilians. The murders greatly embittered the British rank-and-file against the Sepoy rebels and inspired the war cry "Remember Cawnpore!".
Baji Rao II was the 13th and the last Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy. He governed from 1795 to 1818. He was installed as a puppet ruler by the Maratha nobles, whose growing power prompted him to flee his capital Poona and sign the Treaty of Bassein (1802) with the British. This resulted in the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805), in which the British emerged victorious and re-installed him as the titular Peshwa. In 1817, Baji Rao II joined the Third Anglo-Maratha War against the British, after they favoured the Gaekwad nobles in a revenue-sharing dispute. After suffering several battle defeats, the Peshwa surrendered to the British, and agreed to retire in return for an estate at Bithoor and an annual pension.
Azimullah Khan Yusufzai , also known as Dewan Azimullah Khan, was initially appointed Secretary, and later Prime Minister to Maratha Peshwa Nana Saheb II.
Bithoor or Bithur is a town in Kanpur district, 23.4 kilometres (14.5 mi) by road north of the centre of Kanpur city, in Uttar Pradesh, India. Bithoor is situated on the right bank of the River Ganges, and is a centre of Hindu pilgrimage. Bithoor is also the centre for War of Independence of 1857 as Nana Sahib, a popular freedom fighter who was based there. The city is enlisted as a municipality of Kanpur metropolitan area.
The Second Battle of Cawnpore was a battle of Indian Rebellion of 1857 that was decisive by thwarting the rebels' last chance to regain the initiative and to recapture the cities of Cawnpore and Lucknow.
The Central India Campaign was one of the last series of actions in the Indian rebellion of 1857. The British Army and Bombay Army overcame a disunited collection of states in a single rapid campaign, although determined rebels continued a guerrilla campaign until the spring of 1859.
The Steam House is an 1880 Jules Verne novel recounting the travels of a group of British colonists in the Raj in a wheeled house pulled by a steam-powered mechanical elephant. Verne uses the mechanical house as a plot device to have the reader travel in nineteenth-century India. The descriptions are interspersed with historical information and social commentary.
Nana Rao Park / Company Bagh is a public city park in Kanpur, the industrial hub of Uttar Pradesh, India, built after Indian independence in honor of Nana Sahib. Prior to Indian Independence the location was known as Memorial Well and commemorated the massacre of British women and children during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Satti Chaura Ghat or Massacre Ghat is a famous ghat in Kanpur, the industrial hub of Uttar Pradesh state in north India. It is located on the bank of the River Ganges in Kanpur Cantonment near Jajmau.
Sir Hugh Massy Wheeler KCB was an Irish-born officer in the army of the East India Company. He commanded troops in the First Anglo-Afghan War, and the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars, and in 1856 was appointed commander of the garrison at Cawnpore. He is chiefly remembered for the disastrous end to a long and successful military career, when his defence of Wheeler's entrenchment and surrender to Nana Sahib during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 led to the annihilation of almost all the European, Eurasian and Christian Indian population of Cawnpore, himself and several members of his family included.
Tantia Tope was a notable commander in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Sir John Blick Spurgin (1821–1903) was a British army officer, a prominent figure of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
British East India Company 
Henry Havelock 