Tipu Sultan, commonly referred to as Sher-e-Mysore or "Tiger of Mysore", was the Indian Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery. He expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets and commissioned the military manual Fathul Mujahidin. He deployed the rockets against advances of British forces and their allies during the Anglo-Mysore Wars, including the Battle of Pollilur and Siege of Srirangapatna.
Hyder Ali was the Sultan and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's rulers. Rising to the post of Dalavayi (commander-in-chief) to Krishnaraja Wodeyar II, he came to dominate the titular monarch and the Mysore government. He became the de facto ruler of Mysore as Sarvadhikari by 1761. During intermittent conflicts against the East India Company during the First and Second Anglo–Mysore Wars, Hyder Ali was the military leader.
Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, KB was an Anglo-Irish military officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1780. He is best known for his many years of service with the British Army in India. His victory at the Battle of Wandiwash is considered a decisive turning point in the struggle for control in India between Britain and France. He was known by his sepoy troops as Coote Bahadur.
General Sir Hector Munro, 8th Laird of Novar, KB was a Scottish army officer and politician who served as the ninth Commander-in-Chief of Bengal from 1764 to 1765.
The Battle of Pollilur, also known as the Battle of Polilore or Battle of Perambakam, took place on 10 September 1780 at Pollilur near Conjeevaram, the city of Kanchipuram in present-day Tamil Nadu state, India, as part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War. It was fought between an army commanded by Tipu Sultan of the Kingdom of Mysore, and a British East India Company force led by William Baillie. The EIC force suffered a high number of casualties before surrendering. It was the worst loss the East India Company suffered on the subcontinent until Chillianwala. Benoît de Boigne, a French officer in the service of 6th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry, wrote, "There is not in India an example of a similar defeat".
The Kingdom of Mysore, briefly called the Sultanate of Mysore from 1761 to 1799, was a realm in the southern part of Deccan Plateau traditionally believed to have been founded in 1399 by two Hindu brothers, in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysore. From 1799 until 1950, it was a princely state, until 1947 in a subsidiary alliance with British India. The British took direct control over the princely state in 1831. Upon accession to the Dominion of India, it became Mysore State, later uniting with other Kannada speaking regions to form the state of Karnataka, with its ruler remaining as Rajapramukh until 1956, when he became the first governor of the reformed state.
The Battle of Sadras was the first of five largely indecisive naval battles fought between a British fleet and a French fleet off the east coast of India during the Anglo-French War. Fought on 17 February 1782 near present-day Kalpakkam, the battle was tactically indecisive, but the British fleet suffered the most damage. Under Suffren's protection, French troop transports were able to land at Porto Novo, present-day Parangipettai.
The Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company from 1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the conflict between Britain against the French and Dutch in the American Revolutionary War influenced Anglo-Mysorean hostilities in India. The great majority of soldiers on the company side were raised, trained, paid and commanded by the company, not the British government. However, the company's operations were also bolstered by Crown troops sent from Great Britain, and by troops from Hanover, which was also ruled by Great Britain's King George III.
The First Anglo-Mysore War (1767–1769) was a conflict in India between the Sultanate of Mysore and the East India Company. The war was instigated in part by the machinations of Asaf Jah II, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who sought to divert the company's resources from attempts to gain control over the Northern Circars.
The Anglo-Mysore Wars were a series of four wars fought during the last three decades of the 18th century between the Sultanate of Mysore on the one hand, and the British East India Company, Maratha Empire, Kingdom of Travancore, and the Kingdom of Hyderabad on the other. Hyder Ali and his succeeding son Tipu fought the wars on four fronts: with the British attacking from the west, south and east and the Nizam's forces attacking from the north. The fourth war resulted in the overthrow of the house of Hyder Ali and Tipu, and the dismantlement of Mysore to the benefit of the East India Company, which took control of much of the Indian subcontinent.
Major-General James Stuart was a British Army officer who served in various conflicts in India during the 18th century. His service in the East India Company was marked by his conflict with Lord Pigot, the governor of Madras; Stuart's arrest of the latter in 1776 resulted in his suspension as commander-in-chief, and he was not vindicated until 1780. He later fought in the Second Anglo-Mysore War, but was suspended from command in 1782 by Lord Macartney, an action that provoked a duel between the two men. Stuart was a younger brother of the lawyer and politician Andrew Stuart.
Parangipettai, historically called Porto Novo, is a coastal panchayat town in Cuddalore district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Parangipettai is located on the north bank of the mouth of the Vellar River at a distance of 30 km from Cuddalore. From the state capital city of Chennai, Parangipettai can be reached through the National Highway NH32 stretch between Cuddalore and Chidambaram.
The Treaty of Mangalore was signed between Tipu Sultan and the British East India Company on 11 March 1784. It was signed in Mangalore and brought an end to the Second Anglo-Mysore War.
The siege of Negapatam was the first major offensive military action on the Indian subcontinent following the arrival of news that war had been declared between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, beginning the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. A British force besieged the Dutch-controlled port of Negapatam, the capital of Dutch Coromandel, on the eastern coast of India, which capitulated after the fortification's walls were breached. The Dutch garrison consisted of 500 European troops, 5,500 local troops, and 2,000 troops of Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore.
The Battle of Pollilur was fought on 27 August 1781, between forces of the Kingdom of Mysore under Hyder Ali and British East India Company forces led by General Eyre Coote. The battle was fought on the site of a 1780 encounter in which a Company force was almost completely routed or captured.
The Battle of Sholinghur was fought on 27 September 1781 at Sholinghur, 80 kilometres (50 mi) West of Chennai (Madras), between forces of the Kingdom of Mysore led by Hyder Ali and East India Company forces led by General Eyre Coote. Haider Ali's forces were surprised by the company forces and they were expelled from the Carnatic with heavy casualties.
The Maratha–Mysore wars were a conflict in the 18th century India between the Maratha Confederacy and the Kingdom of Mysore. Though initial hostilities between the sides started in 1760s, the last battle began in February 1785 and ended in 1787.
The Mysorean invasion of Malabar (1766–1792) was the military invasion of the Malabar region of Kerala, including the territories of the Zamorin of Calicut, by the then-de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, Hyder Ali. After the invasion, the Kingdom of Cochin to the south of Malabar became a tributary state of Mysore.
Pullalur or Pollilur is a village in the Kanchipuram taluk of Kanchipuram district in Tamil Nadu, India. The village has been the site of three historic battles - the Battle of Pullalur fought between the Chalukya king Pulakesin II and the Pallava king Mahendravarman I in 611-12, the Battle of Pollilur (1780) and Battle of Pollilur (1781) of the Second Anglo-Mysore War between Hyder Ali and the East India Company.
John Whitehill was an East India Company officer who was twice as Governor of Madras on a temporary basis in 1777 and 1780.
East India Company 
Mysore 
Memorial for the Battle of Porto Novo, 1781 at Porto Novo
The Battle of Porto Novo Memorial Park
