Emperor Akbar

Akbar (Hindustani: [kbr]; 14 October 1542 27 October 1605), known as Akbar the Great, was Mughal Emperor from 1556 until his death. He was the third and greatest ruler of the Mughal Dynasty in India. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expand and consolidate Mughal domains in India. A strong personality and a successful general, Akbar gradually enlarged the Mughal Empire to include nearly all of the Indian Subcontinent north of the Godavari river. His power and influence, however, extended over the entire country because of Mughal military, political, cultural, and economic dominance. To unify the vast Mughal state, Akbar established a centralised system of administration throughout his empire and adopted a policy of conciliating conquered rulers through marriage and diplomacy. In order to preserve peace and order in a religiously and culturally diverse empire, he adopted policies that won him the support of his non-Muslim subjects. Eschewing tribal bonds and Islamic state identity, Akbar strived to unite far-flung lands of his realm through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to himself as an emperor who had near-divine status. Akbar was succeeded as emperor by his son, Jahangir.

Death
On 3 October 1605, Akbar fell ill with an attack of dysentery, from which he never recovered. He is believed to have died on or about 27 October 1605, after which his body was buried at a mausoleum [157] in Sikandra, Agra. Seventy-six years later, in 1691, a group of austere Hindu rebels known as the Jats, rebelling against theMughal Empire robbed the gold, silver and fine carpets within the tomb, desecrated Akbar's mausoleum

Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [adlf htl] ( listen); 20 April 1889 30 April 1945) was an Austrianborn German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party(German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Fhrer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust. Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined the German Workers' Party (precursor of the NSDAP) in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'tat in Munich, known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocraticideology of Nazism. Hitler's aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To this end, his foreign and domestic policies had the aim of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for

the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, resulting in the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In 1943, Germany was forced onto the defensive and suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time partner, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler's aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His antisemitic policies and racially motivated ideology resulted in the deaths of at least 5.5 million Jews, and millions of other people deemed racially inferior.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Italian pronunciation: [leonardo da vvinti] pronunciation (helpinfo); April 15, 1452 May 2, 1519, Old Style) was anItalian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2] According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote".[1] Marco Rosci states that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.[3] Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by Francis I. Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait[4] and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam.[1] Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon,[5] being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings survive, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination.[nb 2] Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator,[6] and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate

tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime,[nb 3]but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[nb 4] He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.[7]

Shahjahan
A'la Azad Abul Muzaffar Shahab ud-Din Mohammad Khurram, known by his imperial name Shah Jahan, (Urdu: ; Persian: king of the world) (also spelled Shah Jehan, Shahjehan) (January 5, 1592 January 22, 1666) was the Indian emperor of the Mughal Empire in South Asiafrom 1628 until 1658. He was the fifth Mughal emperor after Babur, Humayun, Akbar, and Jahangir. While young, he was the favourite of his legendary grandfather, Akbar the Great. At a young age, he was chosen as successor to the Mughal throne after the death of his father, Emperor Jahangir, in 1627. He is considered one of the greatest Mughals. His reign has been called the Golden Age of the Mughals and one of the most prosperous ages of Indian civilization. Like Akbar, he was eager to expand his vast empire. In 1658, he fell ill and was confined by his son Emperor Aurangzeb in Agra Fort until his death in 1666.
The period of his reign was the golden age of Mughal architecture. Shah Jahan erected many splendid monuments, the most famous of which is theTaj Mahal at Agra, built in 16321648 as a tomb for his beloved wife, Empress Mumtaz Mahal. The Moti Masjid, Agra and many other buildings in Agra, the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid in Delhi, mosques in Lahore, extensions to Lahore Fortand a mosque in Thatta also commemorate him. The famous Takht-e-Taus or the Peacock Throne, said to be worth millions of dollars by modern estimates, also dates from his reign.

Shivaji maharaj
Shivaji Bhosale ([iai bos()le]; c. 1627/1630[2] 3 April 1680), was the founder of the Maratha Empire, which lasted until 1818, and at its peak covered much of the Indian subcontinent. An aristocrat of the Bhosle Maratha clan, Shivaji led a resistance against the Adilshahi sultanate of Bijapur and the Mughal Empire and re-established a Hindavi Swarajya ("self-rule of Hindu people"). He created an independent Maratha kingdom with Raigad as its capital, and was crowned Chhatrapati ("paramount sovereign") of the Marathas in 1674. Shivaji established a competent and progressive civil rule with the help of a disciplined military and wellstructured administrative organisations. He innovated military tactics, pioneering the guerilla warfare methods (Shiva sutra or ganimi kava), which leveraged strategic factors like geography, speed, and surprise and focused pinpoint attacks to defeat his larger and more powerful enemies. From a small contingent of 2,000 soldiers inherited from his father, Shivaji created a force of 100,000 soldiers; he built and restored strategically located forts both inland and coastal to safeguard his territory. He revived

ancient Hindu political traditions and court conventions, and promoted the usage of Marathi and Sanskrit, rather than Persian, in court and administration.

Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on a field at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. Each team takes it in turn to bat, attempting to score runs, while the other team fields. Each turn is known as an innings. The bowler delivers the ball to the batsman who attempts to hit the ball with his bat far enough for him to run to the other end of the pitch and score a run. Each batsman continues batting until he is out. The batting team continues batting until ten batsmen are out, at which point the teams switch roles and the fielding team comes in to bat. In professional cricket the length of a game ranges from 20 overs of six bowling deliveries per side to Test cricket played over five days. The Laws of Cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) with additional Standard Playing Conditions for Test matches and One Day Internationals.[1] Cricket was first played in southern England in the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, it had developed into the national sport of England. The expansion of the British Empire led to cricket being played overseas and by the mid-19th century the first international matches were being held. The ICC, the game's governing body, has 10 full members.[2] The game is most popular in Australasia, England, the Indian subcontinent, the West Indies and Southern Africa.