Planned cities such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa flourish along the Indus, with drainage systems, standardised weights and an undeciphered script.
The hymns of the Rigveda, the oldest text of Hinduism, are composed in Vedic Sanskrit and transmitted orally for generations.
Siddhartha Gautama attains enlightenment at Bodh Gaya and teaches in the Ganges plain, founding Buddhism.
Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nanda dynasty of Magadha, founding the first empire to unite most of the Indian subcontinent.
Emperor Ashoka conquers Kalinga; the war's devastation leads him to embrace Buddhism.
Emperor Ashoka has edicts inscribed on rocks and pillars across his empire, promoting Buddhist ethics and tolerance.
According to tradition, the monk Mahinda, son of Ashoka, brings Buddhism to Anuradhapura and converts King Devanampiya Tissa.
Chandragupta I takes the throne, beginning the Gupta era, often regarded as a golden age of Indian science, art and literature.
Under the Guptas, the monastery of Nalanda in Bihar is founded and becomes Asia's foremost centre of Buddhist learning for centuries.
Mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata completes the Aryabhatiya, treating place-value notation, an approximation of pi and the Earth's rotation.
In the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta gives the first known rules for arithmetic with zero and negative numbers.
The monk Xuanzang travels to India and brings back hundreds of Buddhist texts, which he translates into Chinese.
The Chola king Rajaraja I completes the monumental temple to Shiva, a masterpiece of Dravidian architecture.
The fleet of the Chola king Rajendra I raids Srivijayan ports along the Strait of Malacca, weakening the maritime empire.
Muhammad of Ghor defeats Prithviraj Chauhan, opening northern India to Muslim rule.
Qutb ud-Din Aibak establishes the Delhi Sultanate, which dominates much of northern India for over three centuries.
The Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta travels across the Islamic world and beyond, from West Africa to China, for nearly three decades.
The brothers Harihara and Bukka found the Vijayanagara Empire in southern India; its capital Hampi becomes one of the world's largest cities.
Timur's army defeats the Delhi Sultanate and devastates the city, gravely weakening the sultanate.
Admiral Zheng He leads seven Ming treasure voyages to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Arabia and East Africa.
Guru Nanak is born at Talwandi (now Nankana Sahib, Pakistan); his teachings become the foundation of Sikhism.
Vasco da Gama's fleet left Lisbon, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, sailed up the East African coast and reached Calicut, opening a direct sea route between Europe and Asia.
Afonso de Albuquerque seizes Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate; it becomes the capital of Portuguese India until 1961.
Babur, using artillery and firearms, defeats Ibrahim Lodi, ending the Delhi Sultanate and founding the Mughal Empire.
Mughal forces defeat Hemu, securing the throne of the young Akbar, whose reign brings the empire to its zenith.
Queen Elizabeth I grants a royal charter to the East India Company, which later comes to rule much of the Indian subcontinent.
Mughal emperor Shah Jahan builds the Taj Mahal at Agra in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal; it becomes the emblem of Mughal architecture.
Shivaji is crowned Chhatrapati at Raigad, formalising the Maratha state in opposition to the Mughal Empire.
Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh guru, establishes the Khalsa, the community of initiated Sikhs.
The death of Aurangzeb, under whom the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent, begins the empire's rapid decline.
Nader Shah of Persia defeats the Mughals at Karnal and sacks Delhi, carrying off treasures including the Peacock Throne.
The East India Company under Robert Clive defeats Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal, beginning British dominance in India.
Ahmad Shah Durrani's Afghan army defeats the Maratha Empire in one of the bloodiest battles of the 18th century.
Prithvi Narayan Shah, king of Gorkha, takes the Kathmandu Valley, laying the foundation of the unified Kingdom of Nepal.
Ranjit Singh captures Lahore and unites the Sikh confederacies into an empire in the Punjab.
Britain defeats Konbaung Burma, which cedes Assam, Manipur, Arakan and Tenasserim under the Treaty of Yandabo.
Sepoys mutiny at Meerut, sparking a widespread uprising against East India Company rule across northern and central India.
After the 1857 rebellion, the Government of India Act transfers rule from the East India Company to the British Crown; the Mughal Empire formally ends.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in Porbandar; he becomes the leader of India's nonviolent independence movement.
The Indian National Congress holds its first session in Bombay; it later leads the independence movement.
Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore becomes the first Asian Nobel laureate, honoured chiefly for Gitanjali.
Troops under General Reginald Dyer fire on an unarmed crowd in Amritsar, killing hundreds and fuelling anti-colonial sentiment.
Gandhi leads a nonviolent march to Dandi to make salt in defiance of the British salt tax, launching the civil disobedience movement.
The All-India Muslim League adopts a resolution calling for independent states in Muslim-majority areas, a step towards the creation of Pakistan.
The Congress launches a campaign demanding an immediate end to British rule in India; Gandhi and other leaders are arrested.
A wartime famine in British-ruled Bengal kills an estimated two to three million people.
British India is partitioned into the independent dominions of India and Pakistan, accompanied by mass migration and violence.
Gandhi is shot dead in New Delhi by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist.
Ceylon becomes an independent dominion within the Commonwealth, ending British colonial rule.
The constitution drafted under B. R. Ambedkar comes into force, making India a republic; the day is celebrated as Republic Day.