When was the East India Company established?

This answer will focus on the British East India Company. There were also East India Companies chartered in the Netherlands and France. The British East India Company, however, was chartered in 1600, and its shareholders hoped to profit from trade with Southeast Asia, India, and the area now known as Indonesia. As the British won control of the region, the East India Company essentially functioned as a colonial government in and of itself. It had its own flag, appointed governors of India and other regions, and exercised tremendous influence both in Great Britain and abroad. The East India Company was struggling in the 1770s, and was forced to accept government control in return for a monopoly on the tea trade designed to boost its fortunes. This was what prompted the Boston Tea Party in the American colonies. Over the next century, the East India Company gradually saw its role limited by acts of Parliament, and after a large revolt in India in 1857, the East India Company lost control of the colony.