Kanpur ( ), formerly anglicized as Cawnpore, is a large industrial city located in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in year 1207, Kanpur became one of the most important commercial and military stations of British India. Kanpur is also the financial capital of Uttar Pradesh and part of upcoming Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority i.e. BIDA Nestled on the banks of Ganges River, Kanpur has been the major financial and industrial centre of North India and also the ninth-largest urban economy in India. Today it is famous for its colonial architecture, gardens, sweets, dialect, IT parks and fine quality leather, plastic and textile products which are exported mainly to the West.

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 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (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.