History & Heritage
Bangalore/Bengaluru, the city has many tales behind this name. One of them - The city got its name from the popular anecdote which recounts that the 11th-century Hoysala king Veera Ballala II, while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman who served him boiled beans. Thus “benda-kalu-ooru” which means boiled beans.
PRE COLONIAL ERA
Bengaluru had a succession of various south Indian dynasties which were the Western Gangas, theCholas, and theHoysalas who had ruled over the current region of the city. In 1537 CE,Kempe Gowda who was a feudal ruler under theVijayanagara Empire established a mud fortconsidered to be the foundation of the city. In 1638, theMarathasconquered and ruled Bengaluru for almost 50 years, after which theMughalscaptured and sold the city to the Mysore Kingdomof the Wadiyar dynasty. In 1687 CE, the Mughals took possession of the city and leased it to Chikkadevaraya Wodeyar (1689 CE) who was the king of Mysore. The Wodeyar ruler expanded the existing fort to the south of the city. In 1761 CE, Hyder Ali further strengthened the fortified with stone masonry.
POST INDEPENDENCE
FollowingIndia’s independencein 1947, Bangalore became the capital ofMysore State. The two urban settlements of Bangalore which is the old city and cantonment had developed as independent entities merged into a single urban center in 1949. After Independence, Bangalore was a sleepy hill station with lots of beautiful Bungalows. It had earned the sobriquet of “ Pensioners paradise” as a lot of retired people settled here. But all that changed in the mid-1980s when the software industry began to dig its roots here. The existingKannadaname,Bengaluru, was declared theofficial nameof the city in 2006. Bengaluru’s reputation as a science and technology center was established early in the 20th century; in 1905 it became the first city in Indiato have electric street lights. Since the 1940s it has been home to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), India’s first aircraft manufacturing company. Today the city is best known as a hub for software and electronics development, and business process outsourcing.