When things get complicated I turn to the friendly ACK for help. How many times ever I read history I keep forgetting names and dates and facts. So who was Lodi and who was Khilji and when did the Mughals come and all those battles and all that. So when I chanced upon this comic by ACK titled 'The Historic City of Delhi' I read it and it made a lot of sense.
Here's the timeline as per ACK for my reference
- 732 AD - Tunwars, a Rajput clan, made Delhi their capital (notable structures, Lalkot fort built in 1000 AD with an iron pillar brought from a temple considered the standard of Vishnu, which is still intact with no traces of rust, now at least 1600 years old)
- Tunwars were overthrown by Chauhans, Rajputs (Prithiviraj Chauhan, who strengthened Lalkot and named it Rai Pithora)
- 1191 AD Muhammad of Ghori invaded India and lost to Prithviraj who let him go alive, Muhammad Ghori returned and defeated Prithviraj and killed him
- Muhammad's general, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, a slave, was made regent of Delhi and his dynasty is known as the Slave dynasty (he built Qutb Minar and died before it was finished, he also built the first mosque of the North near the Minar)
- His son-in-law Iltutmish completed the 72 metre and five storeyed structure (his tomb is adjacent to the mosque, he had a long successful reign)
- Iltutmish's daughter Razia Sultana was the next queen - she died in battle
- From the slave dynasty the power went to the Pathans - Allauddin Khilji was the greatest who made himself master of most of India (he described himself as the second Alexander, he built the city of Siri, and the royal tank Hauz Khas, the Alai Darwaza near the Qutb Minar)
- From the Khiljis power went to the Tughlaq dynasty. Ghiasuddin Tughlaq built a city called Tughluqabad (this was the time of Nizamuddin Auliya the Sufi saint who predicted the end of Tughluqabad and earned the wrath of the king, his famous - 'Dilli abhi door hai' line is still used as Ghiasuddin never made it to Delhi, Hazrath Nizamuddin dargah is still there)
- Muhammad bin Tughluq shifted his capital to Devagiri (Daulatabad) 700 miles away and returned after a few years
- Muhammad bin Tughluq's successor was Firoz Shah (built the western Yamuna canal, in 1354 he founded the Firoz Shah Kotla which has a 12.9 metre Ashoka pillar which had an inscription that none could decipher - only in 1837 it was deciphered, Firoz Shah was buried in Hauz Khas)
- Timur the Lame plundered Delhi and left
- Lodis took control, the third Lodi king Ibrahim Lodi fought Babur at Panipat and lost - but he died fighting bravely (tomb of second Lodi king Sikandar Lodi is in Lodi gardens)
- In 1526 Babur entered Delhi, faced tough opposition from Rana Sangha, a Rajput prince and defeated them after giving up what he loved - wine
- He was followed by his son, scholarly and superstitious Humayun (built Purana Qila, believed to be the site of Indrapastha)
- Humayun was twice defeated by Sher Shah Suri, who was a good ruler (built the grand trunk road, the Khooni darwaza near Firoz Shah Kotla, Sher Mandal and a mosque in Purana Qila)
- Humayun regained the throne and died,bringing Akbar to the throne (he ruled from Agra and Fatehpur Sikri)
- His son Salim aka Jahangir also ruled from Agra
- His son Shah Jahan shifted back to Delhi and built the Red Fort (cost one crore to build), a mosque Jama Masjid, a city called Shah Jahan came up around the red Fort with Chandni Chowk as its main thoroughfare, Mughals power was at its highest during his time
- His son Aurangzeb murdered two of his brothers, overthrew his father and became emperor (his sister Roshanara helped him, there are gardens named after her), he murdered Guru Tegh Bahadur
- Jantar Mantar was built during the reign of Muhammad Shah by Raja Jai Singh
- Delhi was attacked and plundered by Nadir Shah of Persia who took the Koh-i-Noor with him along with a huge loot
- Over the next hundred years Delhi was ravaged by Marathas, Rohillas, Pathans
- In 1857 Bahadur Shah Zafar unwittingly became the head of the Sepoy mutiny the British shot dead his three sons near the Gateway, hence Khooni Darwaza, bodies exhibited)
- In 1911 British made Delhi the capital if British India - Sir Edward Lutyens commissioned to build a new city for them)
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