In 1936, Syrie Maugham, a leading interior decorator, left for India to, in her words, "paint the Black Hole of Calcutta white". She was famous for popularising rooms styled entirely in white and was nicknamed The Princess of Pale.
On Aug 15, 1947, one Indian Rupee was equal to one US dollar as it was linked to the British Pound. It fell to 4.79 in 1966 and prior to the 1991 liberalisation, it stood at 17.90 to the dollar.
India's first nuclear test was conducted in 1974 in Pokharan, Rajasthan. It was codenamed Smiling Buddha.
The Tamil word for the dhole (aka Asiatic wild dog aka Indian wild dog) is Chennai (red dog).
For a few centuries before independence, a part of southern Vietnam was called Cochinchina. It was so named by 16th century Portuguese traders to distinguish its Malay name, Kuchi, from their Indian base in Cochin/Kochi in Kerala.
Timur / Tamerlane / Timur the Lame, founder of the Timurid dynasty and decimator of 5% of the world's population had a son named Shah Rukh.
Telangana's claim for statehood hinged on what it believed were violations of the Gentlemen's Agreement of Andhra Pradesh, an agreement signed between the leaders of Andhra and Telangana in 1956.
Rabindranath Tagore's family name was actually Banerjee. Being Brahmins, the Tagore family's ancestors were referred to as 'Thakurmashai' or 'Holy Sir'. During the British rule, this name stuck and they began to be recognised as Thakur and eventually the family name got anglicised to Tagore.