The present city of Nagpur was founded at the beginning of the 18th century by the Gond Raja Bakht Buland. It subsequently became the capital of the Bhonslas, was sacked and burnt in 1765 and again partially burnt in 1811 by the Pindaris, but it grew with the growth of the Bhonsla kingdom and was considerably improved by the Rajas of that dynasty. In 1817 it witnessed the battles of Sitabaldi and Nagpur, which secured British influence in these territories, and in 1853 it lapsed with the kingdom to the British Raj to become in 1861 the capital of the Central Provinces. At the time of the Mutiny there was but little disturbance in the city. A riot occurred in 1896 at the commencement of the famine, and there was another in 1899 when plague preventive measures were first enforced, but both were easily suppressed. Since its assumption as British territory the history of the town has been one of peaceful growth, quickened by the advent of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway in 1867, retarded at times by fame, and in more recent years so greatly stimulated by the development of the cotton industry that five severe epidemics of plague have not stopped the advance.