Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh (ˌʊtər_prəˈdɛʃ; 'North Province') is a state in northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world – more populous than all but four countries – accounting for 16.5% of the total population of India. It was established in 1950 after India had become a republic. It is a successor to the United Provinces, established in 1935 by renaming of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, in turn established in 1902 from the North-Western Provinces and the Oudh Province.
Maratha EmpireThe Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian empire and later a confederation that rose to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Shivaji of the Bhonsle dynasty as the Chhatrapati. Although Shivaji came from the Maratha caste, the Maratha empire also included warriors, administrators and other nobles from the Maratha and several other castes from what is known today as Maharashtra.
Marathi peopleThe Marathi people (मराठी लोक) or Marathis (मराठी) are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a Marathi-speaking state of India in 1960, as part of a nationwide linguistic reorganization of the Indian states. The term "Maratha" is generally used by historians to refer to all Marathi-speaking peoples, irrespective of their caste; however, now it may refer to a Maharashtrian caste known as the Maratha.
Delhi SultanateThe Delhi Sultanate, or the Sultanate of Delhi, was a Muslim empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent during the period of Medieval India, for 320 years (1206–1526). Following the invasion of South Asia by the Ghurid dynasty, five largely unrelated dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate sequentially: the Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), and the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526).
AgraAgra (ˈɑːɡrə, ˈaːgraː) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the fourth-most populous city in Uttar Pradesh and twenty-third most populous city in India. Agra's notable historical period began during Sikandar Lodi's reign, but the golden age of the city began with the Mughals.
RajputRajput (from Sanskrit rājaputra meaning "son of a king"), also called Thakur, is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.
Indian Rebellion of 1857The 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, 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.
Madhya PradeshMadhya Pradesh (ˌmɑːdjə_prəˈdɛʃ, ˈməd̪ɦjə pɾəˈdeːʃ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Dewas, Sagar, Satna, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the second largest Indian state by area and the fifth largest state by population with over 72 million residents. It borders the states of Uttar Pradesh to the northeast, Chhattisgarh to the east, Maharashtra to the south, Gujarat to the west, and Rajasthan to the northwest.
Gwalior FortThe Gwalior Fort, commonly known as the Gwāliiyar Qila, is a hill fort near Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India. The fort has existed at least since the 10th century, and the inscriptions and monuments found within what is now the fort campus indicate that it may have existed as early as the beginning of the 6th century. The modern-day fort, embodying a defensive structure and two palaces was built by the Tomar Rajput ruler Man Singh Tomar. The fort has been administered by a number of different rulers in its history.
Princely stateA princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to a subsidiary alliance and the suzerainty or paramountcy of the British crown. In July 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru pointedly observed that no princely state could prevail militarily against the army of independent India. In January 1947, Nehru said that independent India would not accept the divine right of kings.