About Kolkata, India

Quick Look

Although the name Kalikata had been mentioned in the rent-roll of the Great Mughal emperor Akbar and also in Manasa-Mangal, to explore the history of Calcutta, we have to go back to the 17th century. It was in 1690....Job Charnock came on the bank of the river Hooghly (it's the part of the Ganges) and took the lease of three large villages along the east bank of the river - Sutanuti, Govindapur and Kolikata (Kolkata) as a trading post of British East India Company. The site was carefully selected, being protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a creek to the north, and by salt lakes about two and a half miles on the east. These three villages were bought by the British from local landlords. The Mughal emperor granted East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees. Before the British came Kolkata was just a village, the capital city of Bengal was Murshidabad, about 60 miles north of Kolkata. In 1756, Siraj-ud-daullah, nawab of Bengal, attacked the city and captured the fort. Kolkata was recaptured in 1757 by Robert Clive when the British defeated Siraj-ud-daullah on the battlefield of Plassey and recaptured the city. Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, made it the seat of the supreme courts of justice and the supreme revenue administration, and Kolkata became the capital of British India in 1772. All important offices were subsequently moved from Murshidabad to Kolkata. By 1800 Kolkata had become a busy and flourishing town, the centre of the cultural as well as the political and economic life of Bengal. Kolkata became the centre of all cultural and political movements in entire India. The 19th century Renaissance and Reformation in India was pioneered in this city. Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendra Nath Bose (co-author of Bose-Einstein Theory) and many more eminent personalities enhanced the cultural heritage of the city of Kolkata. Till 1912, Kolkata was the capital of India, when the British moved the capital city to Delhi. In 1947, when India gained freedom and the country got partitioned between India and Pakistan, Kolkata was included in the Indian part of Bengal, West Bengal. Kolkata became the capital city of the state of West Bengal.

Victoria Memorial

The Victoria Memorial (Victoria Memorial Hall) is a large marble building in Kolkata (Calcutta), West Bengal, India which was built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria (1819–1901) and is now a museum and tourist destination under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.[2] The Memorial lies on the Maidan (grounds) by the bank of the Hooghly river, near Jawaharlal Nehru road.

History
In January 1901, on the death of Queen Victoria, George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston and Viceroy of India, suggested the creation of a fitting memorial. He proposed the construction of a grand building with a museum and gardens. Curzon said,
“Let us, therefore, have a building, stately, spacious, monumental and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta will turn, to which all the resident population, European and Native, will flock, where all classes will learn the lessons of history, and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past.”
The Prince of Wales, later King George V, laid the foundation stone on 4 January 1906 and it was formally opened to the public in 1921. In 1912, before the Victoria Memorial was finished, King George V announced the transfer of the capital of India from Calcutta to New Delhi. Thus, the Victoria Memorial was built in what would be a provincial city rather than a capital.

Howrah Bridge

Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge with a suspended span over the Hooghly River in West Bengal, India. Commissioned in 1943, the bridge was originally named the New Howrah Bridge, because it replaced a pontoon bridge at the same location linking the two cities of Howrah and Kolkata (Calcutta). On 14 June 1965 it was renamed