From an elected king in a lawless Bengal, the Pala Empire grew into northern India's dominant power and the last great Buddhist empire of the subcontinent. This is the story of Gopala, Dharmapala and Devapala, of the universities of Nalanda and Vikramashila — and of the long decline that ended with the Senas.
The Faraizi movement, founded by Haji Shariatullah in early nineteenth-century East Bengal, began as a call for Muslims to return to the obligatory duties of Islam — and became, under his son Dudu Miyan, a disciplined peasant organisation that ran its own courts and defied the landlords and indigo planters of the Bengal delta.
Read MoreOn the night of 18 April 1930, a schoolteacher and some sixty-five young revolutionaries seized Chittagong's armouries, cut the city off from British India and proclaimed a provisional government — but the ammunition was never found. This is the story of Surya Sen, the Battle of Jalalabad Hill, and the women of the movement, Pritilata Waddedar and Kalpana Datta.
Read MoreIn October 1764, on the Ganges at Buxar, Company sepoys under Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. That victory — judged by Britannica to be more decisive than Plassey — led to the Treaty of Allahabad and the Diwani grant of 1765, turning a trading company into the revenue ruler of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
Read MoreBengal Sultanate (1352–1576): how Ilyas Shah united Bengal, the Hussain Shahi golden age, Gaur and Pandua, the silver tanka and the fall at Rajmahal in 1576.
Read MoreBattle of Plassey 1757: how Clive, Mir Jafar and the Jagat Seths unseated Siraj-ud-Daulah — and why historians dispute the battle and its betrayal story.
Read MoreIn 1905 Lord Curzon split Bengal in two. The Swadeshi movement, the Muslim League's birth in Dhaka and the 1911 annulment: the story of Bengal's first partition.
Read MoreThe story of Subah Bengal: the Mughal conquest of 1576, Dhaka's rise as Jahangirnagar, the great subahdars and nawabs, and the fall at Plassey in 1757.
Read MoreWar, a cyclone and soaring rice prices made food unaffordable in 1943 Bengal, killing millions. The famine's causes remain debated by historians today.
Read MoreHow Bengal was divided in 1947: the 1905 precedent, the failed United Bengal plan, the Radcliffe Line and the long migrations that reshaped two nations.
Read MoreHow Bengali became a state language: from the 1947 Tamaddun Majlis pamphlet to the martyrs of 21 February 1952 and recognition in the 1956 constitution.
Read MoreHow East Pakistan's demand for autonomy became a war of independence: the 1970 election, Operation Searchlight, nine months of resistance and victory in 1971.
Read More
