British rule in Burma in the context of "First Anglo-Burmese War"

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company, under the leadership of Robert Clive, over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757. The victory was made possible by the defection of Mir Jafar, Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah's commander in chief, as well as much of the Bengal Subah's armies being earlier committed against an Afghan invasion led by Ahmad Shah Durrani against the Mughal Empire. The battle helped the British East India Company take complete control of Bengal in 1773. Over the next hundred years, they continued to expand their control over vast territories in the rest of the Indian subcontinent and Burma.

The battle took place at Palashi (Anglicised version: Plassey) on the banks of the Hooghly River, about 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and south of Murshidabad in West Bengal, then capital of Bengal State. The belligerents were the British East India Company, and the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. He succeeded Alivardi Khan (his maternal grandfather). Siraj-ud-Daulah had become the Nawab of Bengal the year before, and he had ordered the English to stop the extension of their fortification. Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the Nawab's army, and also promised to make him Nawab of Bengal. Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at Plassey in 1757 and captured Calcutta.

The British Raj (/rɑːdʒ/ RAHJ; from Hindustani rāj, 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 1858 to 1947. It is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. India was a participating state in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947 when the British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh in the 1971 Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its independence in 1948. It was renamed Myanmar in 1989. The Chief Commissioner's Province of Aden was also part of British India at the inception of the British Raj and became a separate colony known as Aden Colony in 1937 as well.

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, while its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

Early civilisations in the area included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Myanmar and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Myanmar. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley, and following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell to Mongol invasions, and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo dynasty, the country became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a short period. The early 19th-century Konbaung dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Assam, the Lushai Hills, and Manipur as well. The British East India Company seized control of the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. After a brief Japanese occupation, Myanmar was reconquered by the Allies. On 4 January 1948, Myanmar declared independence under the terms of the Burma Independence Act 1947.

The South-East Asian Theatre of World War II consisted of the campaigns of the Pacific War in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Indochina, Burma, India, Malaya, and Singapore between 1941 and 1945.

Japan attacked British and American territories with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific on 7/8 December 1941. Action in this theatre ended when Japan announced an intent to surrender on 15 August 1945. The formal surrender of Japan ceremony took place on 2 September 1945.

Independence Day (Burmese: လွတ်လပ်ရေးနေ့) is a national holiday observed annually in Myanmar every 4 January. The date celebrates Myanmar's Declaration of Independence from British rule on 4 January 1948.

The Cairo Conference (codenamed Sextant), also known as the First Cairo Conference, was one of 14 summit meetings during World War II, which took place on November 22–26, 1943. The Conference was held at Cairo in Egypt between China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Attended by Chairman of the National Government of China Chiang Kai-shek, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it outlined the Allied position against the Empire of Japan during World War II and made decisions about post-war Asia.

The Conference agenda was to formulate a strategy to counterattack the Empire of Japan, make arrangements for the post-war international situation and coordinate the counter-attack on Burma and the aid to China. The Cairo Declaration, issued after the conference, demanded Japan's unconditional surrender, the return to China of all occupied lands, and the shaping of a new post-war East Asia.