History of Dhaka
[citation needed] Dhaka's strategic riverine location in Bengal made it a hub for Eurasian traders, including Armenians, the Portuguese, French, Dutch and British.
The earliest written mention of Dhaka occurs in a map in the book Décadas da Ásia (Decades of Asia) by Portuguese historian João de Barros.
[11] The Pāla Empire (r. 750–1161 CE)[12][13] was an imperial power during the post-classical period in the Indian subcontinent,[14] which originated in the Varendra subregion of Bengal.
[16] A stone statue of Nateshwar, a depiction of dancing Shiva on the back of his bull-carrier Nandi, was found at Sarangadhar Jeu Akhada, a monastery in the Chowkbazar Thana area of Dhaka in 2011.
Binat Bibi Mosque was built in 1454 at Narinda area of Dhaka during the reign of the Sultan of Bengal, Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah (r.
[31] 17th-century historian Mirza Nathan described the fort in his book Baharistan-i-Ghaibi as "surrounded by mud walls and the largest and strongest in pre-Mughal era".
[28] But Dhaka was situated in Bhati region of Bengal which hosted several rebel forces led by Isa Khan (1529–1599) of Bara-Bhuiyans from mid to late 16th century.
[38] Rebel prince Shah Jahan defeated and killed him in 1624 and when he entered Dhaka, "all the elephants, horses, and 4,000,000 rupees in specie belonging to the Government were delivered to him".
Also, many large, strong, and stately elephants, trained for battle, which are kept close to the palace.Construction of Lalbagh Fort was commenced in 1678 by Prince Muhammad Azam during his 15-month-long governorship of Bengal, but before the work could complete, he was recalled by Emperor Aurangzeb.
[5] A French physician and traveller, François Bernier, visited Dhaka in 1664 and recorded his memories in his book Voyages dans les États du Grand Mogol.
[24]: 144 In 1682, William Hedges, the first agent and governor for the affairs of the East India Company in the Bay of Bengal, visited Dhaka on 25 October and met Khan to acquire perwannas.
[50][24]: 156 Francis Bradley Bradley-Birt, an English writer, wrote in his 1906 book The Romance of an Eastern Capital – "It is truly the city of Shaista Khan".
[58]: 88 Ralph Fitch, an English traveller, recorded in 1586 that Portuguese traders were involved in shipping rice, cotton and silk goods.
In 1840, James Taylor, the civil surgeon of Dhaka, wrote that the oldest existing Portuguese structure today, Church of Our Lady of Rosary in Tejgaon, was built in 1599 by the missionaries.
In his words, This is the chief city in Bengala and the seat of the principal Nababo or viceroy, appointed by the emperor, who bestowed this viceroyalty, on several occasions, on one of his sons.
[59] A section of the Portuguese came from Sandwip and Arakan and settled on the bank of Ichamati River (about 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of Dhaka) at the present-day Muktarpur–Mirkadim area in Munshiganj, which bears its historical name of Feringhi Bazar.
[59] In the 1780 map of English geographer James Rennell, the Portuguese settlers in Dhaka were within proximity of that church (present-day Narinda-Laxmibazar area).
[65] Besides the Nimtali Kuthi, two other notable constructions during the period were Chowk Bazaar, built by Naib Nazim Mirza Lutfullah in 1728 and the Armanitola Mosque in 1735.
Khan Bahadur Nazem Chowdhury became Sadr e Ala (Chief judge of greater Dhaka and Mymensing) in 1846 by the British Raj with Gazette from released from Calcutta.
Both brothers are holding vast Zamindari across Easter Bengal in Dhaka, Brahminbaria, Comilla, Chandpur, Tripura, Noakhali areas.
Abul Muzaffar Abdullah was elder son of Khan Bahadur Nazem was also Legal Pleader and Zaminder and most prominent elites of Dhaka.
[74] After the Battle of Buxar in 1765, per the Treaty of Allahabad, East India Company was appointed the imperial tax collector of the province Bengal-Bihar-Orissa by the Mughal emperor.
[75] Although an important city in the Bengal province, Dhaka remained smaller than Kolkata, which served as the capital of British India for a long period of time.
[84] Under the Permanent Settlement of Bengal enactment by Charles Cornwallis in 1793, the Company government and the Bengali zamindars agreed to fix revenues to be raised from land.
[20] The 20th session of All India Muhammadan Educational Conference was held at Ishrat Manzil, in present-day Shahbag area in Dhaka during 27—30 December 1906.
On the final day, the All-India Muslim League political party was formed, with the aim of the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state.
[113][114] The arrest of the Bengali politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1968 would also spark intensive political protests and violence against the military regime of Ayub Khan.
Galvanising public anger against ethnic and regional discrimination and poor cyclone relief efforts from the central government, the gathering preceded near total consensus among East Pakistan population for independent movement.
It was sponsored by United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) to promote trade and tourism by publicizing improved road networks across continent.
The city would see the restoration of order under military rule, but political disorder would heighten in the mid-1980s with the pro-democracy movement led by the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
