Black Hole of Calcutta to regions of space-time resulting from the gravitational collapse of very heavy stars. He recalled hearing physicist Robert Dicke in the early 1960s compare such gravitationally collapsed objects to the infamous prison. Black Hole of Calcutta The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small prison or dungeon in Fort William where troops of Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war for three days on 20 June 1756. John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company, said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Anglo-Indian
Bankipur (Bengal) Bankipur (Bengal) Bankipur was an ancient village on the Hugli river located in what is now West Bengal, north of Barrackpore, a little north of Ishapore. It is now a suburb of Barrackpore and is not to be confused with Bankipur city (West Bengal) located on the coast (at 21.76° N and 87.86° E). Bankipur was famous as the principal settlement of the Ostend Company, the one great effort made by the Austrian Empire to secure a foothold in India. The Ostend Company was formed in 1722–1723, and with a capital of less than a million sterling founded two settlements,