LYCOS RETRIEVER
Delhi: Delhi City
built 655 days ago
Present day Delhi is built around the ruins of seven ancient cities. Legend has it that Delhi, then called Indraprastha, was originally founded around 1200 B.C. by the Pandavas, the august heroes of the epic Mahabharata. Old Delhi was the capital of Muslim India between the 17th and 19th centuries, and here you will find many mosques, monuments and forts relating to India's Muslim history. The Imperial city planned for the British by Lutyens is set in parks and shaded avenues. It is a spacious, open city and contains many embassies and government buildings.
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The Ridge, famous as the British base during the siege of Delhi during the Mutiny, in 1857, is a last outcrop of the Aravalli Hills which rises in a steep escarpment some 60 ft. above the city. At its nearest point on the right of the British position, where the Mutiny Memorial now stands, the Ridge is only 1200 yds. from the walls of Delhi; at the Flagstaff Tower in the centre of the position it is a mile and a half away; and at the left near the river nearly two miles and a half. It was behind the Ridge at this point that the main portion of the British camp was pitched. The Mutiny Memorial, which was erected by the army before Delhi, is a rather poor specimen of a Gothic spire in red sandstone, while the memorial tablets are of inferior marble. Next to the Ridge the point of most interest to every English visitor to Delhi is Nicholson's grave, which lies surrounded by an iron railing in the Kashmir gate cemetery.
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Delhi has a semi-arid climate with high variation between summer and winter temperatures. Summers are long, from early April to October, with the monsoon season in between. During the summer season, the city faces extreme power and water shortages.[30] The summer heat waves kill dozens each year.[30] Winter starts in November and peaks in January and is notorious for its heavy fog, which often disrupts road, air and rail traffic.[31] Extreme temperatures range from −0.6 °C (30.9 °F) to 47 °C (117 °F).[32] The annual mean temperature is 25 °C (77 °F); monthly mean temperatures range from 14 °C to 33 °C (58 °F to 92 °F).[33] The average annual rainfall is approximately 714 mm (28.1 inches), most of which is during the monsoons in July and August.[12] The average date of the advent of monsoon winds in Delhi is 29 June.[34]
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Delhi's festival calendar begins with the Republic Day parade on 26th January. It is the most colorful of the city's festivals events and ... the biggest crowd-puller. Hundreds of thousands people line the route from Rajpath to the Red Fort to watch the pageant of solders, camel crops, armored regiments, brass bands, folk dancers, school children, war veterans and elaborate floats representing the cultural diversity of India. more.....
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Delhi's climate is, sad to say, infamously bad, combining the scorching aridity of Rajasthan's deserts with the frigid cold of the Himalayas. From April to October, temperatures are scorchingly hot (over 40°C is common), and the monsoon rains deluge the city in July and August. With every air-conditioner running at full blast, the city's creaky infrastructure is often stretched beyond the breaking point, with power and water outages common. In winter, especially December and January, temperatures can dip to near-zero and the city is blanketed in thick fog, causing numerous flight cancellations. The shoulder seasons (Feb-Apr and Sep-Nov) are comparatively pleasant, with temperatures in the 20-30°C range, but short.
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Fifty-three years of quiet prosperity for Delhi were brought to a close by the Mutiny of 1857. Its capture by the mutineers, its siege, and its subsequent recapture by the British have been often told, and nothing beyond a short notice is called for here. The outbreak at Meerut occurred on the night of the 10th of May 1857. Immediately after the murder of their officers, the rebel soldiery set out for Delhi, about 35 m. distant, and on the following morning entered the city, where they were joined by the city mob. Mr Fraser, the commissioner, Mr Hutchinson, the collector, Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace guards, and the Rev. Mr Jennings, the residency chaplain, were at once murdered, as were ... most of the civil and non-official residents whose houses were situated within the city walls. The British troops in cantonments consisted of three regiments of native infantry and a battery of artillery.
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