India has had a cultural impact on Britain for hundreds of years. You can see its influence in the food and drink that we can consume, and also in our language, with words like “pyjamas” and “shampoo” deriving from Urdu and Hindi respectively. But how did Queen Victoria come to adore a country that she never set foot in, and what role did the East India Company play? Here, we take a brief look back at how Queen Victoria became Empress of India.

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