Battle of Plassey
The Company takes Bengal, beginning British rule in India
East India Company forces under Robert Clive defeated Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal, whose commander Mir Jafar defected to the British. The Company gained control of Bengal, the start of British rule in India.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake — 2 years earlier
- 1756–1763 Seven Years' War — 1 year earlier
- c. 1760 Start of the Industrial Revolution — 3 years later
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — 12 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1762 Accession of Catherine the Great — 5 years later
- 1764 Founding of the Hermitage — 7 years later
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — 11 years later
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — 15 years later
Middle East
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — 10 years earlier
Americas
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — 19 years later
Oceania
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — 11 years later
Alive at the time
- Voltaire (aged 63)
- Benjamin Franklin (aged 51)
- Mikhail Lomonosov (aged 46)
- James Cook (aged 29)
- Catherine the Great (aged 28)
- George Washington (aged 25)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 8)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (aged 1)
- Carl Linnaeus (aged 50)
- Leonhard Euler (aged 50)