Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan was called the Tiger of Mysore, and he loved tigers so much that he had a huge mechanical tiger toy in his palace. Tipu ruled from the beautiful island fort of Srirangapatna and fought hard to keep his kingdom free from the British East India Company.

His soldiers used something new and exciting on the battlefield — iron rockets that could fly and burn from far away. The British were so impressed that they later copied Tipu's rockets and used them in their own wars.

Tipu Sultan (1751–1799) inherited the kingdom of Mysore from his father Hyder Ali and ruled it during a time when the British East India Company was expanding fast across south India. He fought four Anglo-Mysore Wars against the British and their local allies, using both diplomacy and battle to defend his land.

His engineers developed iron-cased war rockets that could travel over a kilometre, far ahead of any European rockets at the time. William Congreve later studied captured Mysorean rockets to design the famous Congreve rockets used by the British army.

Tipu also brought in new land reforms, encouraged silk farming, and sent envoys to France and the Ottoman Empire. He died defending his capital Srirangapatna on 4 May 1799 during the fourth war, and is still remembered as a symbol of resistance.