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Robert Clive
Robert Clive (1725-1774), also known as 'Clive of India' and Baron Clive of Plassey, masterminded the expansion of the East India Company in India. Best known for his victory at Plassey in Bengal in 1757, Clive's reputation suffered in his...
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Battle of Plassey
The Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757 saw Robert Clive's East India Company army defeat a larger force of the Nawab of Bengal. Victory brought the Company new wealth and marked the beginning of its territorial expansion in the subcontinent...
Definition
Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta refers to a prison cell which was used to hold 146 mostly British prisoners captured after the Nawab of Bengal had taken over the city from the East India Company. Interred on 20 June 1756 in a tiny cell in Fort...
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Map Showing Davis Island Below the Tropic of Capricorn
Ile Davis (Davis Island or Davis Land) was an island said to have been discovered in 1687 near Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by the English buccaneer Edward Davis (fl. c. 1680–1688) skipper of the Bachelor’s Delight. It is located below the Tropic...
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Fall of the East India Company
The British East India Company (1600-1874) was the largest and most successful private enterprise ever created. All-powerful wherever it colonised, the EIC's use of its own private army and increasing territorial control, particularly in...
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Robert Clive
A portrait by Nathanial Dance of Robert Clive (1725-1774), Governor General of Bengal and representative of the East India Company. Known as 'Clive of India' for his expansion of EIC interests in the subcontinent, the military commander and...
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Wonderful Things: Howard Carter's Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
The great discoverer of the treasures of King Tutankhamun, Howard Carter, was born on May 9, 1874 CE to Samuel John and Martha Joyce (Sands) Carter in Kensington, England. A sick, home-schooled child, Carter learned to draw and paint from...
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Robert Clive & The East India Company Rule in India, c. 1765
A map illustrating the transformation of the East India Company from a hopeful merchant venture in 1600 with isolated trade outposts governed by isolated and mostly independent town councils into a major ruler of large territories in India...
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Clive at the Siege of Arcot
A 1913 illustration by Ernest Wallcousins showing Robert Clive at the siege of Arcot, India in 1751. Clive seized Arcot and then defended it against an army of Chandra Sahib, the nizam of Hyderabad. (Taken from Pioneers in India, by Johnston...
Definition
East India Company
The English East India Company (EIC or EEIC), later to become the British East India Company, was founded in 1600 as a trading company. With a massive private army and the backing of the British government, the EIC looted the Indian subcontinent...