Sabjanta - a guide to kolkata / Calcutta, Bengal & Bengali

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Facts you might know

Facts about Kolkata

    * Till 1898 Kolkata nights were lit by only gas and earthen lamps. The year 1899 witnessed the advent of electrical light in Kolkata. A total of one lakh sterling pound was spent to light up the city of joy.

    * The Calcutta Medical College which was founded in 1835, is Asia’s oldest medical school.

    * The University of Calcutta, India’s second oldest modern university was established in 1857.

    * Kolkata was the capital of British India from 1772. It became the Royal capital of India on 1st November 1858. Kolkata then became the Imperial capital of India on 1st January 1877 and remained so till 1911 when the capital was moved to Delhi.

    * Kolkata, once the capital of British India, has the largest number of heritage buildings.

    * The oldest hotel in Kolkata is the Great Eastern Hotel, which was built in 1835 by David Wilson. However the first hotel to come up in Kolkata was built by John Spence in 1830.

    * Asia’s first modern University in Serampore (a Danish settlement) was built in 1827.

    * The British built the first theatre hall in 1745 and called it the “Play House”. But it was the Russian theatre lover Horasim Lebedev who floated the first Bangla theatre production in 1795 based on an adaptation of “The Disguise”. Lebedev is also credited with building the first auditorium for Bangla play, the “Bengalee Theatre”.

    * The Royal Calcutta Golf Club, established in 1829, is the oldest golf club in India, and the first outside Great Britain.

    * On November 1830, the first ever horse driven bus plied on the heart of Kolkata. It would be 1922 till the first motor driven bus arrived in Kolkata. And the famous double decker buses started plying between Shyambazar and Kalighat from 1926.

    * The Calcutta Football League is the oldest league in Asia and one of the oldest in the World. It was started by the British at the end of the 19th century in 1898. Interestingly, since 1934 only one club besides the Maidan big three, Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting, was able to win the league title, it was Eastern Railway in 1958.

    * The Calcutta Women’s Football League is the oldest league for women in India. It was started by the Indian Football Association in 1993.

    * Kolkata is the seventh most expensive city in India.

    * Kolkata is the eighth largest city in the world by population of metropolitan area.

    * Kolkata is the largest metropolis of India by area.

    * Kolkata is the world’s largest processor of jute.

    * Established in 1879, Bethune College is the first women’s college in India. The College was established in order to provide opportunities of college education to Kadambini Bose - a pupil of Bethune School, who had successfully completed the entrance examination of Calcutta University in 1878. The first classes of Bethune College were held at the premises of Bethune School. Kadambini Bose and Chandramukhi Bose are the first women graduates of India and they graduated from Bethune College in 1883. Chandramukhi Bose also became the Principal of Bethune College.

    * Construction of India’s first subway system began in Kolkata in 1973. In 1986, the first section of the subway system, the first in India, was opened in the city.

    * The world’s second oldest Geological Survey came into existence in Kolkata in the year 1851.

    * The Grand Trunk Road (National Highway No. 2) is one of the oldest road routes in India and it runs from Howrah to Kashmir.

    * Greater Kolkata has more than 30 museums, which cover a wide variety of fields. The Indian Museum, founded in 1814, is the oldest in India and is the largest museum of its kind in the country. It is the ninth oldest regular museum of the world, and is the oldest institution of its kind in Asia Pacific region.

    * National Library is the largest library in India.

    * The first currency bill of India was printed by the British from a Kolkata mint in 1757.

    * Birla Planetarium is one of the oldest Planetariums in India. The only planetarium in the country, whose dome houses a collection of projectors and optical equipments expensively imported from East Germany. It is the largest planetarium in South-East Asia and the second largest planetarium in the world.

    * The first newspaper of India was published from Kolkata. “Bengal Gazette”, a weekly newspaper published by James Augustus Hickey in January 1780 was the first paper to go into print from our country.

    * The first instance of global electronic communications took place in 1871 when news of the Derby winner was telegraphed from London to Kolkata in under 5 minutes.

    * The first modernised post office was established in Kolkata in 1858.

    * India’s first cellular telephone service was started in Kolkata in July 31, 1995.