Siege of Arrah

Date: August 3, 1857 • Location: Arrah, India

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1857.

Indian Rebellion: An eight-day siege of a fortified outbuilding in Arrah occupied by 68 defenders against more than 10,000 men ended when a relief party dispersed the besiegers.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 as a mutiny of sepoys of the company's garrison in Meerut, a town 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions, chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east. The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858. On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.