Tippu Sultan also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the first son of Haidar Ali by his second wife, Fatima or Fakhr­un-nissa. He was the de facto ruler of the King­dom of Mysore from the time of his father's death in 1782 until his own demise in 1799. Tippu Sultan was a learned man and an able soldier. He was reputed to be a good poet. He was a devout Muslim, but was also appreciative of other religions. At the request of the French, for instance, he built a church, the first in Mysore. He was proficient in the languages he spoke. He helped his father Haidar Ali defeat the British in the Second Mysore War, and negotiated the Treaty of Mangalore with them. However, he was defeated in the Third Anglo ­Mysore War and in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War by the combined forces of Britain and of Travancore. Tippu Sultan died defending his capital Srirangapattana (frequently anglicized to Seringapatam), on May 4, 1799.

During his rule, Tippu Sultan laid the foun­dation for a dam where the famous Krishna Raja Sagara Dam across the river Cauvery was later built. He also completed the project of La! Bagh started by his father Haidar Ali, and built roads, public buildings, and ports along the Kerala shoreline. His trade extended to coun­tries which included .Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, France, Turkey, and Iran. Under his leadership, the Mysore army proved to be a school of mili- tary science to Indian princes. The serious blows that Tippu Sultan inflicted on the British in the First and Second Mysore Wars affected their reputation as an invincible power. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the current President of India, in his Tipu Sultan Shaheed Memorial Lecture in Bangalore on 30 November 1991, called Tippu Sultan the innovator of the world's first war rocket. Two of these rockets, captured by the British at Srirangapatna, are displayed in the Woolwich Museum Artillery in London. Most of Tippu Sultan's campaigns resulted in remarkable successes. He managed to subdue all the petty kingdoms in the south. He defeated the Marathas and the Nizams several times and was also one of the few Indian rulers to have defeated British armies.

Tippu Sultan had lost his sword in a war with the Nairs of Travancore in which he was defeat­ed. The Maharaja, Dharma Raja, gave the sword to the Nawab of Arcot, from where the sword went to London. The sword was on display at the Wallace Collection, No.1 Manchester Square, London. At an auction in London in 2004, the industrialist-politician Vijay Mallya purchased the sword of Tippu Sultan and some other historical artifacts, and brought them back to India for public display after nearly two centuries.