This is what happened in the most notorious event in the Seven Years' War in India, the Black Hole of Calcutta. In June of 1756, the British governor of Calcutta, Roger Drake, made the mistake of insulting the emissaries sent by the Nawab Siraj ad-Dula, who duly besieged and captured the English garrison of 500 with his own army of 30,000. Drake escaped to nearby ships with the town's women and children. You know the old saying, women, children, and governors first. But the town's defenders remained, and the survivors were imprisoned in a small, windowless room that came to be known as the Black Hole. And 40 of 63 prisoners suffocated overnight. This story is mostly famous in a war that killed a million people, because the British press exaggerated the numbers in order to build support for the war in India.