Curated playlist
Former capitals in India
- JodhpurJodhpur, India's Blue City, was founded in 1459 by a chieftain named Rao Jodha.
- ShahjahanabadShah Jahan ordered a whole new walled capital built in 1638. Today it is known as Old Delhi.
- JaipurJaipur was painted pink in 1876 to welcome a royal guest. The visitor was Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.
- MaduraiIn 1921, a visit to Madurai led Mahatma Gandhi to first adopt the loin cloth. He had seen farm laborers wearing it.
- RajkotMahatma Gandhi went to school in Rajkot, and his old school is now a museum. His childhood home stands nearby.
- BijapurAfter Aurangzeb conquered Bijapur in 1686, disease and other natural events killed many of its people.
- AgraAgra's Taj Mahal marble is turning yellow and green. Pollution from the Yamuna river and city air is corroding it.
- PorbandarPorbandar is one of the last places on India's coast where dugongs can still be found.
- PuneModern badminton got its first written rules in Pune in 1873. The game was once called Poona.
- AhmedabadIn 1411, Sultan Ahmad Shah put a stake in the ground at Manek Burj to found the city of Ahmedabad.
- Fatehpur SikriEmperor Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri as his capital in 1571 and abandoned it fourteen years later.
- RajgirRajgir is a town in the Nalanda district of Bihar, India, and nobody can say exactly when it began. Ceramics found there date to about 1000 BC, yet the Mahabharata already tells tales of its kings. Its older name, Rajagriha, means The City…
- MurshidabadMurshidabad is a town on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River in the Indian state of West Bengal, and for seventy years it was the capital of the Bengal Subah. The gates of its great fort were built so high and so wide that an elephant…
- KolkataKolkata, known as Calcutta until its official name changed in 2001, is a city whose founder a court refused to name. In 2003, answering a public petition, the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city does not have a founder at all. That is…
- HyderabadHyderabad began as an answer to a water problem. In 1591 the Qutb Shahi ruler Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah founded a new city on the banks of the Musi River, because the fortress capital of Golconda kept running short of water. Today Hyderabad…
- AhmednagarJawaharlal Nehru wrote The Discovery of India in 1944 in a cell at Ahmednagar Fort.
- AurangabadIn 1681, Emperor Aurangzeb moved his whole court from Delhi to Aurangabad. He wanted to direct his Deccan campaigns.
- BurhanpurBurhanpur appears in Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days under the spelling Burhampoor. The real city is a historical settlement in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative seat of Burhanpur District and is…
- BidarBidar, a city in the Indian state of Karnataka, goes by the nickname City of Whispering Monuments. A state book called Bidar Heritage, published by the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage, lists 61 monuments here. About 30 of…
- VaranasiVaranasi, known for centuries as Benares and Kashi, struck the writer Mark Twain as a place older than time itself. In 1897 he wrote: "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as…