Wikipedia
The East India Company (EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company or the British East India Company and informally as John Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company, which was formed to pursue trade with the East Indies but ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China.
Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.
The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth on 31December 1600, making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies. Wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned the Company's shares. The government owned no shares and had only indirect control.
The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the form of the new British Raj.
Despite frequent government intervention, the company had recurring problems with its finances. The company was dissolved in 1874 as a result of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act passed one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete. The official government machinery of British India had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.
East India Company is a real-time strategy computer game developed by Finnish company Nitro Games and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released on July 31, 2009 in North America with an August 14, 2009 scheduled release date for Europe.
The game is based on the history of European conquest of South Asia and Southeast Asia by means of their East India Companies. In the game, the player takes on the role of the Governor Director of the East Indies. The task is to conquer India and establish a trade empire to rule over all others.
The game features real-time naval combat when enemy ships engage the player's fleets, and real-time land combat when the enemy tries to invade one of the player's colonies. East India Company combines trading, naval warfare, and management. Players can create a fleet to conquer the enemy with powerful warships and privateers.
The East India Company, also known as the English East India Company, the British East India Company, and the Honourable East India Company was an English, and later British, company founded in 1600, and chartered with the monopoly of trading with Southeast Asia, East Asia, and India.
East India Company may also refer to several historical companies of continental Europe, each chartered with a similar monopoly of trade:
- Austrian East India Company, founded 1775 and ceased 1785
- Danish East India Company: 1st (1616–1650), 2nd (1670–1729), Asiatic Company (1730)
- Dutch East India Company, founded 1602 and ceased 1798
- French East India Company, founded 1664 and ceased 1769
- Portuguese East India Company, founded 1628 and ceased 1633
- Swedish East India Company, founded 1731 and ceased 1813