On July 7, 1656, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan was gifted a ‘large uncut diamond’ - believed to be the Kohinoor - by merchant Mir Jumla.
The controversial diamond, which was embedded in the head of one of the peacocks of the Peacock Throne, was passed down in the Mughal dynasty till Muhammad Shah Rangila.
In 1739, Persian king Nader Shah ransacked Delhi and took away the Peacock Throne and on the pretext of ‘swapping of turbans’ with Rangila, also got the Kohinoor.
In 1747, Nader Shah was murdered and Kohinoor was given to Afghan general Ahmad Khan Abdali by Shah’s first lady as a reward for protecting the harem from looters.
After Ahmad Shah Abdali died in 1772, the ‘cursed’ diamond went to his son Timur Shah and then his grandson Shah Zaman.
In 1800, Shah Zaman was captured and put in prison, where he slipped Kohinoor into the crack of the wall. Shah Shuja later found the precious stone which was being used as a paperweight by a mullah.
In 1813, Ranjit Singh rescued Shuja from Kashmir’s governor and threw him in a cage where he pressurised the deposed king to hand over the Kohinoor.
For the next 36 years, the diamond remained with the Sikh empire and was finally passed down to Ranjit Singh’s 10-year-old son Duleep Singh.
In 1849, the East India Company’s army defeated the Sikh forces and the boy king was forced to sign the Treaty of Lahore as per which Kohinoor was surrendered to England’s Queen Victoria.
With the coronation of Charles as the next King, Kohinoor will be inherited by the Queen Consort Camilla.