Angle Wescott, age 15, of Fargo, N.D. for her question:
HOW OLD IS THE CITY OF CALCUTTA?
Calcutta, a city in Eastern India, is the capital of West Bengal and is located on the Bay of Bengal. Modern Calcutta was founded in 1690 by a British trader named Job Charnock. It was a trading post of the British East India Company.
To protect the post, Fort William was built in 1696. Three older villages on the site were purchased for the new fort. The villages were Kalikata (whose name was altered by the British to Calcutta), Sutanati and Govindpur.
The city first became famous in 1756 when Siraj ud Dawlah, the Nawab of Bengal, captured it and stifled to death a number of British residents in a small guard room at Fort William. The place became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta.
The city was recaptured by an Englishman named Robert Clive in 1757 and subsequently was the capital of British India from 1772 until 1912, when Delhi became the capital.
As the British expanded their control over the Indian subcontinent in the late 18th and 19th centuries, Calcutta developed as a busy port and industrial center. Millions came from other parts of India in search of greater economic opportunities.
Unemployment and poverty, already major social problems in the early 20th century, became increasingly acute after the partition of British India in 1947, when large numbers of Hindus from East Pakistan sought refuge in Calcutta.
The population today of greater Calcutta is about 10 million.
Calcutta is one of the world's most crowed and colorful cities. Located near the sea in a once swampy area, it has a subtropical climate known for its high heat and humidity during the summer rainy season.
Housing in Calcutta is in critically short supply and thousands of people live on the streets or in crowded slums of mud huts lacking adequate sanitary facilities.
Calcutta's major landmark is the Maidan, a large park along the Hooghly River. It contains a race course, a cricket ground and the historic Fort Williams, which was rebuilt in 1757. To the southeast is the domed, marble Victoria Memorial, commemorating Queen Victoria's rule of India.
Other places of interest include the city's main business center on Dalhousie Square, the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum and the botanical gardens.
The principal manufacturers of the city include jute products, processed food, silk and cotton textiles, iron and steel, chemicals, electrical and transportation equipment and rubber goods.
Calcutta's principal suburbs, some linked to the city by a subway system built chiefly in the 1970s, include Howrah (the site of the region's main railroad station), Garden Reach, South Suburban, Behala, South Dum Dum, Bally, Baranagar and Barrackpore.