Second Anglo-Mysore War: British troops surrendered the fortress of Bednore in southwestern India to French and Mysorean forces; many of the prisoners were later murdered.

The Second Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict between the Kingdom of Mysore and the British East India Company from 1780 to 1784. At the time, Mysore was a key French ally in India, and the conflict between Britain against the French and Dutch in the American Revolutionary War influenced Anglo-Mysorean hostilities in India. The great majority of soldiers on the company side were raised, trained, paid and commanded by the company, not the British government. However, the company's operations were also bolstered by Crown troops sent from Great Britain, and by troops from Hanover, which was also ruled by Great Britain's King George III.

The siege of Bednore was a battle of the Second Anglo-Mysore War. The British had captured Bednore and other strongholds in the Malabar coast from Mysore in early 1783, while the Mysore leader, Tipu Sultan, was leading his army on campaign in the Carnatic. The British commander, Brigadier-General Richard Matthews, formed a small garrison of 1,600 men at Bednore and split the remainder of the force into detachments to plunder the surrounding region. Tipu Sultan brought his army of more than 100,000 men west and managed to approach within 6 kilometres (4 mi) of Bednore undetected by 9 April. Matthews deployed his troops in the field outside of Bednore and was swiftly defeated. Matthews abandoned the town and retreated to the fort which was quickly besieged by the Mysore army.

The Kingdom of Mysore was a geopolitical realm in southern India founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Mysore and prevailed until 1950. The territorial boundaries and the form of government transmuted substantially throughout the kingdom's lifetime. While originally a feudal vassal under the Vijayanagara Empire, it became a princely state in British Raj from 1799 to 1947, marked in-between by major political changes.