Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Kingdom of Mysore was founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern city of Mysuru and lasted until 1950. It began as a small feudal state under the Vijayanagara Empire and ended after acceding to the Union of India upon independence in 1947, formally becoming Mysore State.
According to traditional accounts, the kingdom was founded by two brothers, Yaduraya (also known as Vijaya) and Krishnaraya. Yaduraya married a local princess named Chikkadevarasi and adopted the feudal title Wodeyar, which the ensuing dynasty retained throughout the kingdom's history.
Four Anglo-Mysore Wars were fought between Mysore and the British East India Company, primarily under the rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Mysore succeeded in the First War and achieved a stalemate in the Second, but suffered defeats in the Third and Fourth. Tipu Sultan died defending Srirangapatna in the Fourth War in 1799, after which large parts of the kingdom were annexed by the British.
Mysorean rockets were the first iron-cased, metal-cylinder rocket artillery in military history, developed by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in the 1780s. The iron casing allowed for higher internal pressure and a range of up to two kilometres. After Tipu's defeat in 1799, captured rockets were sent to England and inspired the Congreve rocket, designed by Sir William Congreve in 1808, which was later used in the Napoleonic Wars.
Tipu's Tiger is an 18th-century wooden automaton made for Tipu Sultan depicting a tiger mauling a European man. Mechanisms inside produce movement, wailing sounds, and grunts, and a flap reveals an 18-note pipe organ. It was seized by East India Company troops in 1799, first exhibited publicly in London in 1808, and transferred to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1880, where it remains part of the permanent collection.
Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was an engineer who became Dewan of Mysore in 1909 and is known as the "Maker of Modern Mysore". During his tenure he oversaw construction of the Kannambadi Dam, founding of the Mysore Iron Works at Bhadravathi, establishment of Mysore University in 1916, and creation of the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in Bangalore. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 1955.