KOLKATA -- Kolkata, or as the city was formerly known, Calcutta, was founded by the British on the humid banks of the Hooghly River in Bengal in 1690. Two centuries later, the city had grown into the most important trading center east of the Suez and remained the world's second most important economic hub (after London) until 1911, when the British moved their capital to Delhi.
But the British were not the first Europeans to set up shop along the Hooghly. Other maritime powers and traders were drawn to Bengal for its rich resources, particularly muslin silk, spices and opium, and established their outposts, or "Kuthis," along the river.
