London. Parliament passes the Government of India Act: by law, the rights of the East India Company are transferred to the crown. It marks the end of a long history of commercial imperialism in India, a history that began on December 31, 1600, a full two and a half centuries earlier. The East India Company was a joint-stock company, modeled after Dutch ones (which in turn had similarities to Venetian commercial practices, such as issuing bonds). But the East India Company went further: it also had the right to print money, recruit armies, fight wars, and forge alliances with other nations on behalf of the English crown.
