On this day in 1839 British-led military forces captured the fortress of Ghazni in Afghanistan. The British East India Company had invaded the Emirate of Afghanistan in order to replace its ruler, Dost Muhammad, with a pro-British ruler, Shah Shuja.
British India at this time was a proprietary colony run by the East India Company , which had been granted the right to rule India by the British Crown. India was only one of several proprietary colonies in the British Empire around the world, where various corporations or individuals had been granted the right to rule by the Crown, with for instance Ruperts Land , which was a vast tract covering most of what is now Canada being ruled by the Hudson's Bay Company , but India was easily the most wealthy and profitable of all the proprietary colonies. By the 19th century, the East India Company ruled 90 million Indians and controlled 70m acres (243,000 square kilometres) of land under its own flag while issuing its own currency, making it into the most powerful corporation in the world. The East India Company had been granted monopolies on trade by the Crown, but it was not owned by the Crown, though the shares in the East India Company were owned by numerous MPs and aristocrats, creating a powerful Company lobby in Parliament while the Company regularly gave "gifts" to influential people in Britain.