How Greased Cartridges Sparked a Nationwide Rebellion

It's almost unbelievable how specific it was. The British Army decided to upgrade

their rifles from the old Brown Bess musket to the new Enfield rifle. Okay,

a standard military upgrade. What was the problem? The problem was the cartridges.

To load the rifle, you had to bite the end of the cartridge off. Right.

And the rumor, which turned out to be true, was that these cartridges were greased with

the fat of cows and pigs. Wow, so a direct religious insult to both Hindu

and Muslim soldiers. The ultimate violation. Yeah. And you can pinpoint the first major

act of defiance to a soldier named Mangal Pandey. On March 29th, 1857,