Tipu Sultan commonly referred to as Sher-e-Mysore or "Tiger of Mysore", was a 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. The economy of Mysore reached a zenith during his reign. He deployed rockets against advances of British forces and their allies during the Anglo-Mysore Wars, including the Battle of Pollilur and Siege of Srirangapatna.
The Congreve rocket was a type of rocket artillery designed by British inventor Sir William Congreve in 1808. The design was based upon the rockets deployed by the Kingdom of Mysore against the East India Company during the Second, Third, and Fourth Anglo-Mysore Wars. Lieutenant general Thomas Desaguliers, colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery at Woolwich, was impressed by reports of their effectiveness, and undertook several unsuccessful experiments to produce his own rocket weapons. Several captured Mysorean rockets were sent to Great Britain following the annexation of the Mysorean kingdom into British India following the death of Tipu Sultan in the siege of Seringapatam.
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, King 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.
Srirangapatna or Srirangapattana is a town and headquarters of one of the seven Taluks of Mandya district, in the Indian State of Karnataka. It gets its name from the Ranganthaswamy temple consecrated around 984 CE. Later, under the British rule, the city was renamed to Seringapatam. Located near the city of Mandya, it is of religious, cultural and historic importance.
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 King 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 was a geopolitical realm in southern India founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Mysore and prevailed until 1950. The territorial boundaries and the form of government transmuted substantially throughout the kingdom's lifetime. While originally a feudal vassal under the Vijayanagara Empire, it became a princely state in British Raj from 1799 to 1947, marked in-between by major political changes.
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 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.
The Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–1792) was a conflict in South India between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company, the Kingdom of Travancore, the Maratha Confederacy, and the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was the third of four Anglo-Mysore Wars.
The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict in South India between the Kingdom of Mysore against the British East India Company and the Hyderabad Deccan in 1798–99.
Rocket artillery is artillery that uses rockets as the projectile. The use of rocket artillery dates back to medieval China where devices such as fire arrows were used. Fire arrows were also used in multiple launch systems and transported via carts. The first true rocket artillery was developed in South Asia by Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. In the late nineteenth century, due to improvements in the power and range of conventional artillery, the use of early military rockets declined; they were finally used on a small scale by both sides during the American Civil War. Modern rocket artillery was first employed during World War II, in the form of the German Nebelwerfer family of rocket ordnance designs, Soviet Katyusha-series and numerous other systems employed on a smaller scale by the Western allies and Japan. In modern use, the rockets are often guided by an internal guiding system or GPS in order to maintain accuracy.
Bangalore Fort began in 1537 as a mud fort. The builder was Kempe Gowda I, a vassal of the Vijaynagar Empire and the founder of Bangalore. King Hyder Ali in 1761 replaced the mud fort with a stone fort and it was further improved by his son King Tipu Sultan in the late 18th century. It was damaged during an Anglo-Mysore war in 1791. It still remains a good example of 18th-century military fortification. The army of the British East India Company, led by Lord Cornwallis on 21 March 1791 captured the fort in the siege of Bangalore during the Third Mysore War (1790–1792). At the time the fort was a stronghold for King Tipu Sultan. Today, the fort's Delhi gate, on Krishnarajendra Road, and two bastions are the primary remains of the fort. A marble plaque commemorates the spot where the British breached fort's wall, leading to its capture. The old fort area also includes King Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, and his armoury. The fort has provided the setting for the treasure hunt in the book Riddle of the Seventh Stone.
Tipu Sultan's (Summer Palace), in Bangalore, India, is an example of Indo-Islamic architecture and was the summer residence of the Mysorean ruler Tipu Sultan. Hyder Ali commenced its construction within the walls of the Bangalore Fort, and it was completed during the reign of King Tipu Sultan in 1791. After King Tipu Sultan died in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the British Administration used the palace for its secretariat before moving to Attara Kacheri in 1868. Today the Archaeological Survey of India maintains the palace, which is located at the center of Old Bangalore near the Kalasipalya bus stand, as a tourist spot. Entry fee is ₹20 for Indian citizens, while for foreign visitors is ₹200 (US$2.30).
The captivity of Kodavas (Coorgis) at Seringapatam was the period of capture, deportation, and imprisonment of Kodava Takk speaking kodavas who rebelled against Tippu Sultan, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, they (60,000-70,000) were caught during a number of attempts to suppress their rebellion in the 1780s.
The Treaty of Seringapatam, signed 18 March 1792, ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Its signatories included Lord Cornwallis on behalf of the British East India Company, representatives of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha Empire, and Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore.
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.
Mysorean rockets were an Indian military weapon. The iron-cased rockets were successfully deployed for military use. They were the first successful iron-cased rockets, developed in the late 18th century in the Kingdom of Mysore under the rule of King Hyder Ali. The Mysorean army, under King Hyder Ali and his son King Tipu Sultan, used the rockets effectively against the British East India Company during the 1780s and 1790s. According to James Forbes Marathas also used iron-encased rockets in their battles. Their conflicts with the company exposed the British to this technology further, which was then used to advance European rocketry with the development of the Congreve rocket in 1805.
Krishnagiri Fort, situated in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu, India, is a formidable historical stronghold that has witnessed the ebb and flow of various dynasties and colonial powers. This fortification, now preserved as a national monument under the auspices of the Archaeological Survey of India, holds a rich history dating back centuries.
The Gumbaz at Ganjam Srirangapattana is a Islamic mausoleum located in centre of a beautiful landscaped gardens, holding the graves of Tipu Sultan, his father Hyder Ali (Middle) and his mother Fakhr-Un-Nisa. It was built by Tipu Sultan to house the graves of his parents. Tipu was buried here after his death in the Siege of Srirangapatna in 1799.
Colonel Bailey's Dungeon in Srirangapatna was the place where Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore Kingdom used to imprison all the British officers who were captured during the Anglo–Mysore Wars fought by him and earlier by his father Hyder Ali. Colonel Bailey, also spelled Baillie, fell into Tipu's hands in the Second Anglo-Mysore War at the Battle of Pollilur (1780), and spent several months in the dungeons of Srirangapatna. It is near the burial memorial of Tipu Sultan and is surrounded by gardens on all four sides. Colonel William Bailey (Baillie) was the only British officer who died in that place in 1782 as he could not sustain the inhuman conditions, and so the dungeon was later named after him. In this context it is said that prisoners were tied to fixtures in the stone slab of the dungeon and were immersed in water up to their necks.
