History of Kolkata

The history of Kolkata traces the transformation of settlements along the Hooghly River into a colonial capital, a center of Indian nationalism, and a major metropolis.

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Sutanuti: A riverside village on the Hooghly that became one of the settlements incorporated into colonial Calcutta. Its settlement was one of the three villages around which the colonial city developed.
Battle of Plassey: A 1757 battle in Bengal that secured decisive political influence for the East India Company. Its outcome enabled Company rule to expand from Calcutta across Bengal.
Bengal Renaissance: A nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century movement of social, intellectual, and cultural change centered largely in Bengal. Calcutta's institutions and urban elite made the city a major setting for its debates.
Black Hole of Calcutta: A disputed account of the deaths of British prisoners after the 1756 capture of Fort William by Siraj ud-Daulah's forces. The story was used to justify British retaliation and became part of colonial memory of the city.
Calcutta: The former English name of Kolkata, officially changed to Kolkata in 2001. The changing name reflects the shift from colonial-era usage to the city's Bengali-derived official name.
Gobindapur: A village south of Sutanuti that was absorbed into the expanding English settlement of Calcutta. Its residents were displaced when the British built Fort William.
Fort William: A British fort in Kolkata, rebuilt after the capture of the original fort in 1756. Its construction displaced Gobindapur and anchored British military power in the city.
Partition of Bengal (1905): The British division of Bengal in 1905, reversed in 1911 after widespread protest. The partition provoked mass politics and sharpened opposition to colonial rule in Calcutta.
Siege of Calcutta: The 1756 capture of Fort William by the forces of Bengal's Nawab, Siraj ud-Daulah. The event exposed the vulnerability of the Company's settlement before its military expansion.
British Raj: The period of direct British Crown rule in India from 1858 to 1947. Calcutta served as its capital until the imperial government moved the capital to Delhi in 1911.