What was Bombay called before the British?
The Portuguese gave the islands various names but they eventually came to be known as Bombaim (or good bay). In 1661, Bombay was made over to the British as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry when she married Charles II of England.
What is the old name of Bombay?
Mumbai
Marathi speakers have long referred to the city as Mumbai, after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, the city’s patron deity. Shiv Sena had argued that the previous name, Bombay, was an unwanted relic of British colonial rule in India.
Who settled in Mumbai first?
The Koli, an aboriginal tribe of fishermen, were the earliest known inhabitants of present-day Mumbai, though Paleolithic stone implements found at Kandivli, in Greater Mumbai, indicate that the area has been inhabited by humans for hundreds of thousands of years.
Why did Bombay change name to Mumbai?
In the mid-1990s, Shiv Sena, the Hindu nationalist party in power in Bombay, decided to change the city’s name to Mumbai, a name often used in local languages that derives from Mumba Devi, the patron Hindu goddess of the island’s original residents, the Koli fishermen.
How did Bombay become Mumbai?
The city’s official name change, to Mumbai from Bombay happened when regional political party Shiv Sena came into power in 1995. The Shiv Sena saw Bombay as a legacy of British colonialism and wanted the city’s name to reflect its Maratha heritage, hence renaming it to pay tribute to the goddess Mumbadevi.
What was New Delhi called before?
It was only 15 years after his coronation as the “King- Emperor of India” that King George V named the city ‘New Delhi’. Until then, the city had in common parlance been referred to just as the “new capital” or “new imperial capital” or “imperial city”.
What was the story of the century that shaped Bombay?
The story of the century that shaped Bombay*, of the people who built and celebrated the city. Harking back to Bombay’s humble beginnings, this essay traces the industrial, socio-physical, architectural and nationalist underpinnings that catapulted Bombay into a modern Indian metropolis. Few cities of consequence are birthed from the seas.
What was life like in Bombay in 1850?
The essay recreates this extraordinary transformation, focusing on key developments that unfolded within the century of 1850 to 1950. Bombay was a group of seven islets covered by samphires and palm coconuts, inhabited by native fisher folk.
Why was Bombay important to the East India Company?
Photo Courtesy: The Early Bombay Photography, Collection of Gopal Nair, View of the harbour (from Apollo Bunder) – Bombay, c. 1880s: Page 104 Unlike the Portuguese, the East India Company, at the very outset, was determined to develop the islands into a trading centre.
When was the Bombay Natural History Society founded?
The Bombay Natural History Society was founded in 1883. Bombay Time , one of the two official time zones in British India , was established in 1884 [127] during the International Meridian Conference held at Washington, D.C in the United States. [128]