Ahmad Shah Abdali blows up Sri Harmandir Sahib and the Sikhs rebuild it

Who: Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani); the Dal Khalsa under Jassa Singh Ahluwalia; Bhai Des Raj of Sursingh, who supervised the rebuilding; and Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh with about thirty Sikhs.

What: After the Vadda Ghallughara of 5 February 1762, Abdali returned to Lahore and then went to Amritsar and had Sri Harmandir Sahib blown up with gunpowder, and the sarovar was left choked with debris. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates it only to 1762. Wikipedia, citing Teja Singh and Ganda Singh, gives 10 April 1762, the day of Vaisakhi. The Sikhs rallied, returned to Amritsar and celebrated Diwali there a few months later.

After Sirhind fell in January 1764, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia called for funds to rebuild. The sardars set aside several hundred thousand rupees of the plunder, deposited with bankers of Amritsar. Bhai Des Raj was put in charge and given a seal, the Guru's mohar, to raise more. Jassa Singh laid the foundation of the sanctum on 19 April 1764. On 1 December 1764 Abdali, on his seventh invasion, marched on Amritsar. Bhai Gurbakhsh Singh and about thirty Sikhs, dressed as for a wedding, charged his army and fell to the last man. The Harmandir, causeway and gateway were finished by 1776, a canal to fill the pool by 1781, and the paved terrace by 1784, partly from the plunder of Khurja in 1783.

Where: Amritsar, around the Harmandir and its sarovar, near the Akal Takht.

Why it mattered: The shrine had been desecrated before, in the 1740s and in 1757, and the Sikhs had reclaimed it each time. In 1762 it was destroyed outright, and the Dal Khalsa rebuilt it from the plunder it took. The Harmandir became the common rendezvous of the misl chiefs, who built bungas around the pool. Maharaja Ranjit Singh later added the gilding and decoration, but the sanctum rests on the rebuilding of 1764 onward.