BCS Written History cheat sheet

Indus Valley script remains undeciphered; chronology rests on radiocarbon dates and trade-linked artefacts such as Mesopotamian seals.

Vedic corpus layers: Rigveda (early hymns), then Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda; later Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads attach to each school.

Mauryan administration evidence: Arthashastra, Ashokan edicts (Prakrit in Brahmi/Kharoshthi), Megasthenes' Indica fragments, and the Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman.

Ashoka's dhamma edicts appear on rocks and pillars across the subcontinent; the Lion Capital at Sarnath is the state emblem of India.

Gupta period dated by the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta and by Kalidasa's works; often called a classical age of Sanskrit literature.

Chola administration: ur (village assembly), sabha (Brahmin assembly), nagaram (merchant body); land grants recorded on temple walls.

Delhi Sultanate sequence: Slave (Mamluk), Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid, Lodi; Alauddin Khalji's market regulations described by Ziauddin Barani.

Vijayanagara and Bahmani rivalry shaped the Deccan; Krishnadevaraya's Amuktamalyada and the accounts of Portuguese travellers are key sources.

Babur's victory at Panipat (1526) used field artillery and the tulughma flanking tactic against Ibrahim Lodi's larger army.

Akbar's mansabdari system graded nobles by zat (personal rank) and sawar (cavalry obligation); jagirs paid salaries.

Din-i-Ilahi (1582) was a small elite cult, not a mass conversion; the Ibadat Khana debates preceded it.

Mughal revenue: Todar Mal's zabt system fixed cash rates from ten-year averages; the Ain-i-Akbari records these statistics.

Shah Jahan's reign is associated with the Taj Mahal, Peacock Throne and the siege of Bijapur and Golconda; the War of Succession followed in 1658.

Aurangzeb reimposed jizya (1679) and faced Maratha resistance under Shivaji; the Deccan wars drained the treasury.

Later Mughals after 1707: Bahadur Shah I, Jahandar Shah, Farrukhsiyar; regional powers (Marathas, Sikhs, Nizam, Bengal nawabs) gained autonomy.

Maratha confederacy: Peshwa at Pune, plus Gaekwad (Baroda), Holkar (Indore), Scindia (Gwalior), Bhonsle (Nagpur); Third Battle of Panipat 1761 checked expansion.

Battle of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764) gave the Company Bengal revenue; the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was granted in 1765.

Permanent Settlement (1793, Cornwallis) fixed zamindari revenue in Bengal; Ryotwari (Munro) and Mahalwari systems applied elsewhere.

Revolt of 1857 began at Meerut; leaders included Bahadur Shah Zafar, Rani Lakshmibai, Nana Saheb and Kunwar Singh; the Company was abolished in 1858.

Indian National Congress founded 1885 (W.C. Bonnerjee first president); the partition of Bengal (1905) triggered the Swadeshi movement.

Gandhian mass movements: Non-Cooperation (1920-22), Civil Disobedience with Dandi March (1930), Quit India (1942).

Government of India Act 1935 introduced provincial autonomy; the 1937 elections brought Congress ministries to power in most provinces.

Partition and independence: Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947), Indian Independence Act, Radcliffe Line boundary award.

Key press and association landmarks: Bengal Gazette (1780), Indian Association (1876), Arya Samaj (1875), Muslim League (1906).

Integration of princely states: Instrument of Accession; Junagadh, Hyderabad (Operation Polo, 1948) and Kashmir (1947-48 war, UN ceasefire line) were contested cases.

Linguistic reorganisation: Andhra (1953) preceded the States Reorganisation Act 1956; Bombay split into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960; Punjab-Haryana in 1966.

Constitution adopted 26 November 1949, in force 26 January 1950; Dr B.R. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee.

Land reform: zamindari abolition acts, ceiling laws, and the Bhoodan movement led by Vinoba Bhave from 1951.

Green Revolution from the mid-1960s used HYV wheat, irrigation and fertiliser subsidies, especially in Punjab and Haryana.

Political milestones: first general election 1951-52; Emergency 1975-77; Mandal Commission report implemented 1990; economic liberalisation 1991.

Foreign policy: Non-Aligned Movement (Bandung 1955, Belgrade 1961), Panchsheel 1954, Indo-Pak wars 1965, 1971 (Bangladesh liberation), 1999 Kargil.

Mesopotamian chronology uses king lists, the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, and later Ptolemy's canon to fix dates.

Egyptian history divided into Old, Middle and New Kingdoms; the Rosetta Stone enabled Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphs (1822).

Greek city-states: Athenian democracy under Cleisthenes (508 BCE); Persian Wars (Marathon 490, Salamis 480); Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE.

Roman Republic to Empire: Julius Caesar assassinated 44 BCE; Augustus' principate from 27 BCE; western empire ended 476 CE.

Feudalism in medieval Europe: manorial economy, vassalage, serfdom; the Magna Carta (1215) limited royal power.

Islamic expansion from 622 CE (Hijra); Abbasid Baghdad became a centre of translation and science; Crusades 1095-1291.

Byzantine Empire survived until Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453; Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis shaped later law.

Mongol empire under Genghis Khan (from 1206) linked Eurasia; the Black Death (1347-51) reshaped European demography.

Renaissance humanism, print culture (Gutenberg c.1450), and the Reformation (Luther's 95 Theses, 1517) broke Latin Christendom's unity.

Scientific Revolution: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton's Principia (1687); Enlightenment thinkers Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau.

Revolutions: American (1776), French (1789), Haitian (1791), and the Industrial Revolution beginning in Britain around 1760.

Colonialism and imperialism: Berlin Conference (1884-85) partitioned Africa; Opium Wars forced China's treaty ports open.

World War I (1914-18): trench warfare, the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the League of Nations; Russian Revolution 1917.

World War II (1939-45): Axis and Allied powers, Holocaust, atomic bombings, the United Nations founded 1945.

Cold War: NATO (1949) and Warsaw Pact (1955), Marshall Plan, Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), decolonisation in Asia and Africa.

Post-1989 order: fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), dissolution of the USSR (1991), globalisation and regional blocs such as the EU.

Ancient Bengal: Pundra, Vanga and Suhma regions; the Pala dynasty (8th-12th centuries) patronised Buddhist monasteries such as Nalanda-linked Vikramashila.

Sena dynasty succeeded the Palas; Bakhtiyar Khalji's conquest of Nadia (c.1204) opened Muslim rule in Bengal.

Bengal Sultanate: Ilyas Shahi, Hussain Shahi dynasties; the Adina Mosque and Chhota Sona Masjid are key monuments.

Mughal Bengal: Raja Man Singh, Islam Khan's move of the capital to Dhaka (1610); the muslin trade drew European companies.

Battle of Plassey (1757) and the Faraizi and Wahabi reform movements (19th century) shaped colonial Bengal's religious and social politics.

Partitions of Bengal (1905 and 1947); the 1947 partition made East Bengal part of Pakistan; the 1971 Liberation War produced Bangladesh.

Language Movement: 21 February 1952 (later UNESCO International Mother Language Day); Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Six-Point demand (1966).

Key documents: 1970 election results, 7 March 1971 speech, Proclamation of Independence (April 1971), Constitution of Bangladesh (1972).

Primary vs secondary sources: primary are contemporary to the event (inscriptions, coins, letters, chronicles); secondary interpret them.

External criticism tests authenticity (date, provenance, handwriting, seals); internal criticism tests credibility and bias.

Numismatics, epigraphy and palaeography date and locate inscriptions; archaeology stratigraphy establishes relative chronology.

Oral history demands corroboration; memory is reconstructive and subject to hindsight bias.

Schools of interpretation: Ranke's empiricism, Marxist class analysis, Annales longue durée, subaltern studies, feminist and postcolonial history.

Chronology tools: dendrochronology, radiocarbon (C-14) calibration, thermoluminescence; written calendars differ (Hijri, Saka, Vikram Samvat).

Source bias: court chronicles flatter patrons; missionary and colonial records reflect their authors' agendas; triangulate across independent sources.

Citation and argument: distinguish evidence from inference; a valid historical claim states its sources, their limits, and alternative explanations.