Indian History GK Questions with Answers – Page 67

The first passenger railway line in India, about thirty-four kilometres long, was opened on 16 April 1853 during the term of Lord Dalhousie, who had set out the plan for an Indian railway network in his Railway Minute of 1853.

Regulation XVII of 4 December 1829 declared sati illegal in the Bengal Presidency and punishable by the criminal courts, and it was extended to Madras and Bombay in 1830.

Awadh was annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1856, but the ground given was alleged misgovernment by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, not the absence of a natural heir.

He signed the Subsidiary Alliance in 1798, the first year of Wellesley's term, agreeing to disband his French-trained troops and to maintain a British force at his own expense.

The Permanent Settlement, also called the Zamindari system, was introduced in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1793. It recognised the zamindars as owners of the land and fixed their revenue demand for all time, so that the state gained a certain income but lost any share in rising production.

The Regulating Act of 1773 changed the designation of the Governor of Bengal to Governor-General of Bengal and gave him a Council of four members, and Warren Hastings, who was already Governor, became the first to hold the new title.

The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 in present-day Bihar, where the Company's army under Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daulah of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.

The Treaty of Salbai ended the First Anglo-Maratha War, fought during the term of Warren Hastings. By its terms Salsette remained with the Company, Raghunathrao's claim to the Peshwaship was dropped and Madhavrao II was recognised as Peshwa.

The Danes acquired Serampore on the Hooghly in 1755 and named it after their king, and the town later became famous as the base of the Baptist missionaries William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward, who printed books in many Indian languages there.

He reached India in 1615 as the accredited ambassador of James I and stayed until 1619, travelling with the Mughal court and obtaining a farman that allowed the English to trade and to set up factories in several parts of the empire.

Portugal gave Bombay to Charles II of England in 1661 as part of the dowry when he married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, and in 1668 the King transferred the islands to the East India Company on an annual rent of ten pounds.

Wandiwash, fought in January 1760 during the Third Carnatic War, saw Sir Eyre Coote defeat the Comte de Lally, and the French never recovered their position in India.

She granted the charter on 31 December 1600 to a body formally called the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, giving it an exclusive right for fifteen years to trade east of the Cape of Good Hope.

He obtained the site from the ruler of Bijapur and founded Pondicherry in 1674, and it became the headquarters of the French in India, holding that position until 1954.

The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, usually called the Dutch East India Company, was created in 1602 when the States General of the Netherlands merged several competing trading ventures and gave the new body a monopoly of eastern trade.

He reached India in 1505 as the first Portuguese Governor and held the office until 1509.

After the Battle of Buxar in October 1764, Robert Clive concluded the Treaty of Allahabad with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II in 1765, and the emperor granted the Company the Diwani, the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

The churches and convents of Old Goa, built after Albuquerque took the city in 1510 and inscribed on the World Heritage list, follow the styles that Portugal itself was using: the ornate late Gothic Manueline manner and, from the late sixteenth century, the Baroque.

Machilipatnam, also written as Masulipatnam, was the first Dutch factory in India, opened in 1605, and the English and the French also traded there; it was never a Portuguese possession.

A Portuguese fleet under Lourenco de Almeida, son of the first Portuguese Governor in India, was driven to the coast of Ceylon in 1505, and the Portuguese soon made a treaty with the ruler of Kotte and built a fort at Colombo.