The town was founded in 1494 by Ahmad Nizam Shah on the site of a more ancient city, Bhingar. With the breakup of the Bahmani Sultanate, Ahmad established a new sultanate in Ahmednagar, also known as Nizam Shahi dynasty.
It was one of the Deccan sultanates, which lasted until its conquest by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1636. Aurangzeb, the last great Mughal emperor, who spent the latter years of his reign, 1681–1707, in the Deccan, died at Khuldabad near Aurangabad in 1707, and a small monument marks the site. Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar was born on May 31, 1725 in Chondi village of Jamkhed taluka in Ahmednagar district. In 1759, the Peshwa of the Marathas obtained possession of the place from Nizam of Hyderabad and in 1790 it was ceded by the Peshwa to the Maratha chief Daulat Rao Sindhia. Ahmednagar was invaded by a British force under General Wellesley and captured. It was afterwards restored to the Marathas, but again came into the possession of the British in 1817, according to the terms of the Treaty of Poona. Numerous Mughal-era buildings dot the environs. Ahmednagar Fort, once considered the second most unimpregnable fort in India, was used by the British to house Jawaharlal Nehru (the first prime minister of India) and other Indian Nationalists before Indian independence. A few rooms there have been converted to a museum. During his confinement by the British at Ahmednagar Fort, Nehru wrote the famous book The Discovery of India
