First Battle of Panipat

On the flat plains of Panipat, near Delhi, on 21 April 1526, two very different armies met. On one side was Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi, with a huge army and many war elephants.

On the other side was a ruler from far-away Kabul named Babur, with only about 12,000 soldiers — but Babur had something new: cannons and long-barrelled guns. When the day ended, Babur had won a big victory and started the Mughal Empire in India, which would rule large parts of the country for more than 300 years.

The First Battle of Panipat, fought on 21 April 1526 in what is now Haryana, was a turning point in the history of India. Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, a ruler descended from both Timur and Genghis Khan, marched from Kabul with a small but well-organised army against Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of the Delhi Sultanate.

Babur used two clever ideas he had brought from Central Asia: field artillery bound together with leather ropes to protect his gunners, and the tulughma tactic of encircling the enemy from the flanks. Ibrahim Lodi's much larger army, with war elephants and cavalry, could not respond quickly to the guns and got trapped.

The Sultan himself was killed in the battle. The victory ended the Lodi dynasty and founded the Mughal Empire, which would shape northern India for over three centuries.

Two more historic battles were later fought on the same plain, in 1556 and 1761.