Some Amazing India Facts & Other

Some Amazing India Facts

• The official Sanskrit name for India is Bharat.
  
• INDIA has been called Bharat even in Satya yuga ( Golden Age )
  
• The name `India’ is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.
  
• The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan’ combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.
  
• The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.
• Sanskrit is considered as the mother of all higher languages. This is because it is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software. ( a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987 ).
  
• Chess was invented in India.
  
• Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.
  
• The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.
  
• The first six Mogul Emperor's of India ruled in an unbroken succession from father to son for two hundred years, from 1526 to 1707.
  
• The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single ' 80-tonne ' piece of granite. Also, this magnificient temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola
  
• India is.......the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).
  
• The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.
  
• The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh.
• Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.
  
• India has the most post offices in the world !
  
• The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing over a million people !.
  
• The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
  
• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The father of medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.
  
• Although modern images & descriptions of India often show poverty, India was one of the richest countries till the time of British in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered America by mistake.
  
• The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh 6000 over years ago. The very word 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.
  
• Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: ( 5th century ) 365.258756484 days.
  
• The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.
  
• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 ( i.e 10 to the power of 53 ) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12( 10 to the power of 12 ).
  
• Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world. ( Source . Gemological Institute of America )
  
• The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.
  
• Sushruta is regarded as the father of surgery. Over 2600 years ago Sushrata & his team conducted complicated surgeries like cataract, artificial limbs, cesareans, fractures, urinary stones and also plastic surgery and brain surgeries.
  
• Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.

Some of the Various Amazing Facts of Animals

• Did you know fishes talk to each other? Some of them communicate by making noises in their throats by rasping their teeth, others use their swim bladders to make sounds.
  
• The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White It can fly up to 95 miles per hour.
  
• Did you know there are two kinds of pandas? There is the Long-tailed Himalayan carnivore that looks like a raccoon and there is the Giant panda bear that lives in Western China.
  
• The Blue Whale's whistle is the loudest noise made by an animal.
  
• Did you know there are two kinds of camels? One is the Arabian that lives in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It has one hump. And the second kind is called Bactrian which has two humps and lives in Mongolia and Chinese Turkistan.
  
• There are two kinds of elephants: the African that is taller and has larger ears and the Indian that is small and has smaller ears.
  
• The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1oz.
  
• The fastest human swimmer can swim at 6 miles per hour. The fastest mammal - the dolphin - can swim up to 35 miles per hour.

Some interesting Amazing Facts

• Napoleon's christening name was Italian: Napoleone Buonaparte(OR Bonaparte). He was born on the island of Corsica one year after it became French property. As a boy, Napoleon hated the French.
  
• The brain of an average adult male weighs 1,375 gm (55 oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev weighed 2021 gm (81 oz), Bismark's weighed 1807 gm (72 oz), while that of French statesman Gambetta was only 1294 gm (51 oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.
  
• The oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert.
  
• Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. In 1932, when a shortage of cash occurred in Tenino, Washington, USA, notes were made out of wood for a brief period.
  
• Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.
  
• Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations has increased 10 cm (about 4 inches). In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77 (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78 (5'8.5") for the Dutch. The tallest nation in the world is the Watusis of Burundi.
  
• In 1955 the richest woman in the world was Mrs Hetty Green Wilks, who left an estate of $95 million in a will that was found in a tin box with four pieces of soap. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands count under the 10 wealthiest women in the world.
  
• According to a study by the Economic Research Service, 27% of all food production in Western nations ends up in garbage cans. Yet, 1,2 billion people are underfed - the same number of people who are overweight.
  
• A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water. If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty. If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.
  
• The system of democracy was introduced 2 500 years ago in Athens, Greece. The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.