The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations — Fexingo History

Before Bombay became Mumbai, it was a motley collection of seven islands, a dowry gift to the British crown, and the site of an audacious engineering project that would reshape the East India Company's fortunes. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the story of Bombay Castle—not just a fort, but the anchor of a city built on reclaimed land and maritime ambition. They follow the island's journey...

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna dive into the surprising story of Captain William Kidd — a Scottish privateer hired by the Company to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean, who ended up hanged for piracy himself. They explore the blurred line between legitimate privateering and outright piracy in the late 17th century, the Company's secr...

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, hosts Lucas and Luna dive into the Company's most profitable and controversial commodity: opium. They trace how the British transformed a medicinal herb into a state-sanctioned narcotic that funded their empire. Lucas explains the triangular trade — Indian opium for Chinese tea — and the mechanics of the opium aucti...

In 1782, the East Indiaman Grosvenor wrecked off the wild coast of South Africa. Of 150 aboard, over 100 survived the surf only to die of starvation and thirst while marching toward the Cape Colony. The survivors' ordeal sparked a scandal that reached the British Parliament and forced the Company to reexamine its treatment of ordinary sailors and lascars. This episode follows the wreck itself, the...

In 1802, Madras became the first place in Asia to receive the smallpox vaccine, just six years after Jenner's discovery in England. This episode follows Dr. John McNab as he brought the vaccine from Bombay to Madras, battling skepticism, heat, and logistical nightmares. We explore the role of Indian intermediaries, the use of children as 'arm-to-arm' carriers, and how the Company's vaccination cam...

Long before the British Raj, the East India Company ruled India under a series of parliamentary charters that slowly transformed a trading corporation into a sovereign power. This episode traces the Charter Acts of 1773, 1784, and 1813—the forgotten legal scaffolding of empire. We explore how Lord North's Regulating Act created a Governor-General and Supreme Court in Calcutta, how Pitt's India Act...

Long before the East India Company minted its own coins, the Indian subcontinent was a patchwork of competing currencies — Mughal rupees, Venetian ducats, and Dutch guilders all circulated together. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how the Company transformed this chaos into a unified financial system, starting with the gold pagoda of Madras and the silver rupee of Bengal. They follow the c...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the Indian Rebellion of 1857—a seismic event that ended the East India Company's rule and began the British Raj. Starting with a loaded cartridge at Meerut, they trace the spread of rebellion across North India: Delhi, where sepoys proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar emperor; Kanpur, where Nana Sahib led a vengeful revolt; and Lucknow, site of a dramatic siege. Th...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the East India Company's reliance on Persian as the language of diplomacy and administration in India long after the Mughal Empire's decline. They discuss how Company officials like William Jones and John Richardson studied Persian, compiled dictionaries, and even attempted to standardize the language for legal and political use. The episode covers the role...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the career of Sir John Malcolm, a key figure in the East India Company's diplomatic and intelligence operations in Persia and India. They discuss Malcolm's missions to the Qajar court in 1800 and 1810, his rivalry with French and Russian envoys, and the Treaty of Finkenstein that threatened British India. The episode covers the Battle of Kermanshah (or rathe...

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna explore a conflict often overlooked in the Company's history: the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826). While the EIC was consolidating power in India, the Konbaung dynasty of Burma was expanding westward into Assam, Manipur, and Arakan, clashing with Company-held Bengal. Lucas walks Luna through the c...

Before the British could tax Bengal, they had to know where it was. In the 1760s, the East India Company hired a young surveyor named James Rennell to map the newly acquired Diwani territories. Over two decades, Rennell produced the first scientifically accurate maps of Bengal and northern India, defining borders, rivercourses, and roads that shaped colonial administration and military campaigns....

In 1767, the East India Company launched a secret mission to smuggle cinnamon trees out of Dutch-controlled Ceylon. This episode follows the covert operation led by botanist John Williams, the establishment of a clandestine plantation in the hills of Kerala, and the Company's attempt to break the Dutch monopoly on this lucrative spice. We explore the science of bark peeling, the politics of coloni...

In Episode 134 of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna explore the forgotten world of the East Indiaman — the mighty merchant ships that were the literal engines of the Company's trade and empire. These vessels, built in Bombay's dockyards by Parsi master shipwrights like the Wadias, were among the largest and most advanced ships of their age, yet they rem...

This episode uncovers the shadowy world of East India Company intelligence in 18th-century India. While the Company's armies and navies are well-documented, its network of spies, informants, and double agents was just as crucial. We focus on Jaswant Rao, a Marathi-speaking Brahmin who served as a key informant for the British in the 1770s. Operating out of Pune, he fed intelligence on Maratha troo...

Before the Great Rebellion of 1857, another revolt shook Company rule in Bengal: the Sanyasi Uprising. In the 1760s and 1770s, bands of Hindu ascetics—sannyasis—took up arms against the East India Company's revenue collectors, sparking a guerrilla war that terrified British officials. Lucas and Luna explore who these rebels were: a motley mix of pilgrims, dispossessed peasants, and wandering monks...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the overlooked role of Western artists in the East India Company's empire. They focus on Tilly Kettle, the first British portrait painter to work in India, who arrived in Madras in 1769. Kettle painted Company officials, nawabs, and even the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, blending European oil painting with Mughal miniature traditions. The episode discusses th...

In 1829, the Governor-General of Bengal, Lord William Bentinck, banned sati — the Hindu practice of a widow immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre. This episode dives into how the East India Company finally took a stand on a practice it had tolerated for decades. We trace the campaign of Bengali reformer Ram Mohan Roy, the legal wrangling over whether Company courts could intervene, and...

In this episode of The East India Company: The Corporation That Conquered Nations, Lucas and Luna explore the life and legacy of Lowji Nasarvanji Wadia, the Parsi master shipwright who transformed Bombay's dockyard into the finest in Asia. From his first commission — the 32-gun frigate HMS Bombay — to the legendary Bengal-built ships that outlasted their British counterparts, Lowji's innovations i...

In 1757, a decisive battle changed the course of Indian history — but the real story of Plassey is less about muskets and cannons and more about treachery, ambition, and a massive rainstorm. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the conspiracy between Robert Clive and Mir Jafar, the greed that drove the East India Company's first major territorial grab, and the staggering loot that followed. The...

In 1746, the French East India Company launched a daring assault on Madras, the English Company's most prosperous settlement. This episode follows the siege of Fort St. George, a desperate defense that nearly ended British rule in India. We meet Nicholas Morse, the embattled governor; Mahé de La Bourdonnais, the French admiral who captured the fort; and the shadowy Nawab of Arcot, whose shifting a...

Before Robert Clive became a household name, there was Major General Stringer Lawrence — the rough-edged Irish soldier who drilled the East India Company's first standing army and turned a ragtag collection of guards into a disciplined fighting force. In this episode, Lucas and Luna follow Lawrence from his early service in the British Army to the mud forts of the Carnatic, where he faced the Fren...

Before Bombay was a megacity, it was a swampy Portuguese outpost. When the East India Company acquired it in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry, they almost gave it up. This episode tells the story of Gerald Aungier, the Company governor who transformed seven malarial islands into a fortified commercial hub. We explore how Aungier lured Parsi shipbuilders, Hindu merchants, and Jewish tr...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the East India Company's transformation into the world's largest drug trafficking organization. They trace the origins of the opium trade from the Company's early monopoly in Bengal to the smuggling networks that circumvented Qing Dynasty bans. The conversation covers key figures like Warren Hastings, who formalized the opium monopoly in 1773, and the Jardin...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the forgotten world of the Company's peons — the armed guards, messengers, and enforcers who were the everyday face of East India Company power in Indian towns and villages. From the peon's distinctive lathi (bamboo staff) and uniform to their role in revenue collection, policing, and even intelligence gathering, we trace how these low-paid, often illiterate...