First Battle of Panipat (1526): How 12,000 Men Beat army of 100,000 and Elephants

21 April 1526. On a flat, dusty plain north of Delhi, Babur of Kabul faces Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. Babur has about 12,000 men. Ibrahim has perhaps 100,000, and hundreds of war elephants. By midday, the Sultan is dead and the Mughal Empire is born. This is the story of how it happened: a boy king who lost everything, a lesson learned from his worst defeat, a governor who opened the gate to India, and a trap of 700 carts, cannon and the tulughma. Chapters 0:00 Panipat, 21 April 1526 1:07 Fergana: the boy who lost everything 2:32 Sar-i-pul: the lesson of the tulughma 3:19 Kabul: two tents and a new home 3:49 Delhi: a kingdom in trouble 4:43 The road to India and its gatekeeper 5:41 Lahore: the guest becomes the master 6:32 Two swords: the gate swings open 7:41 Seven days of waiting 8:42 The trap revealed 10:34 The battle 12:19 From two tents to an empire Sources: the Baburnama (Babur's own memoirs) and standard histories of the Delhi Sultanate and the early Mughals. #Panipat #Babur #MughalEmpire #IndianHistory #History