. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people
, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean
on the south, the Arabian Sea
on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal
on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan
to the west; China
, Nepal
, and Bhutan
to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh
to the east.
1497 Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.
1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.
1499 Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returns to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.
1502 Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1509 The Battle of Diu takes place near Diu, India, between Portugal and Turkey.
1509 The Battle of Diu, between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire takes place in Diu, India.
1565 Battle of Talikota, fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and the Islamic sultanates of the Deccan, leads to the subjugation, and eventual destruction of the last Hindu kingdom in India, and the consolidation of Islamic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent.
1575 Indian Mughal Emperor Akbar defeats Bengali army at the Battle of Tukaroi.
1608 The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.
1639 Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers.
So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
- Mark Twain (American writer)
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
~ Albert Einstein (German Physicist)
If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.
~ Max Mueller (German scholar)
India – The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.
-Wheeler Wilcox (American poet)
After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.
- W. Heisenberg (German Physicist)
The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creator's hand.
- George Bernard Shaw (Irish playwrite)
India is probably the best country in the world, both scenic and peaceful, it truly is god's country. ~ Kobe Bryant
If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India. ~ Romain Rolland (French Nobel Laureate)