Category History & Events

WHY IS THE CAMBRIAN PERIOD IMPORTANT?

The Cambrian period extended from 541 to 485.4 million years ago. It was a time when the Earth was still cold but gradually getting warmer. All pre-Cambrian life was aquatic and soft-bodied. But because Cambrian creatures had hard body parts, many of the earliest known fossils are from this period.

The Cambrian Period marks an important point in the history of life on Earth; it is the time when many kinds of invertebrates and the first vertebrates—fishes—appeared in the fossil record. The Burgess Shale contains the best record of Cambrian animal fossils including soft-bodied forms. This locality reveals the presence of creatures originating from the “Cambrian explosion”—an evolutionary burst of animal origins dating from 545 to 525 million years ago. The “explosion” describes the very rapid proliferation of a truly amazing diversity of living things on Earth. Most of these creatures are now extinct and are known only from their fossils.

During Cambrian time, life was only common in the water. The land was barren and subject to erosion; these geologic conditions led to mudslides, where sediment periodically rolled into the seas and buried marine organisms. At the Burgess Shale locality in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, sediment was deposited in a deep-water basin adjacent to an enormous algal reef with a vertical escarpment several hundred feet high.

Credit: National Park Service

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Why is Roopkund called Skeleton Lake?

During World War II. an Indian forest Ranger called Hari Kishan Madhwa made a morbid discovery in a remote glacier lake in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand. Something strange was visible in its clear water. On closer inspection, it was revealed that the lake was full of human skeletons. It came to be known as Roop Kund or Skeleton Lake. A DNA sample of 38 skeletons showed that they came from three genetically distinct groups. Who were these people? When did they die? How did they die? Where did they come from?

One old theory associates the remains to an Indian king, his wife and their attendants, all of whom perished in a blizzard some 870 years ago.

Another suggests that some of the remains are of Indian soldiers who tried to invade Tibet in 1841, and were beaten back. More than 70 of them were then forced to find their way home over the Himalayas and died on the way.

Yet another assumes that this could have been a “cemetery” where victims of an epidemic were buried. In villages in the area, there’s a popular folk song that talks about how Goddess Nanda Devi created a hail storm “as hard as iron” which killed people winding their way past the lake. India’s second-highest mountain, Nanda Devi, is revered as a goddess.

Earlier studies of skeletons have found that most of the people who died were tall – “more than average stature”. Most of them were middle-aged adults, aged between 35 and 40. There were no babies or children. Some of them were elderly women. All were of reasonably good health.

Also, it was generally assumed that the skeletons were of a single group of people who died all at once in a single catastrophic incident during the 9th Century.

Scientists genetically analysed and carbon-dated the remains of 38 bodies, including 15 women, found at the lake – some of them date back to around 1,200 years. They found that the dead were both genetically diverse and their deaths were separated in time by as much as 1,000 years.

But more interestingly, the genetics study found the dead comprised a diverse people: one group of people had genetics similar to present-day people who live in South Asia, while the other “closely related” to people living in present-day Europe, particularly those living in the Greek island of Crete. Also, the people who came from South Asia “do not appear to come from the same population”.

Genetic studies found no evidence of the presence of any ancient bacterial pathogen that could provide disease as an explanation for the cause of deaths.

Credit : BBC 

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Where is Rani-ki-Vav also known as Queen’s stepwell located?

Rani-ki-Vav is an underground stepwell located in Patan, Gujarat. Situated on the banks of the river Saraswati, this spectacular stepwell was built in the 11th century AD by Queen Udayamati of the Solanki dynasty in memory of her husband King Bhimdev 1.

A stepwell is a multi-tiered well with water that can be reached by descending a series of steps. Rani-ki-Vav has seven storeys of stairs and hundreds of intricately carved sculptures of Vishnu and other deities adoming its walls. It is over 65m long from the entrance to the well, 20m wide and 27m deep. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2014. Did you know the site, before being unearthed by the Archaeological Survey of India in the 1980s, remained covered in mud and slush because of it being flooded by the river Saraswati for around 800 years?

Step wells of India have always mesmerized tourists from far and wide, for their unique architecture and carvings. Not only does Rani ki vav in Gujarat belong to this class of picturesque landmarks of India, it also has a special historical beginning to it. Read more to explore and quench your thirst about the ancient architecture of India. If you are travelling here for the first time, you might get confused as you won’t see a tall museum or the remains of a ruin because it is built inside an opening in the ground, which makes it special. The east facing well constructed in seven storeys is approximately 64m long, 20m wide & 27m deep. As you go down, you will see over 800 sculptures in the seven galleries, majority of which are devoted to lord Vishnu. It is amongst the finest step wells in India, and one of the most famous legacies of the ancient capital city. Various pillars and walls which are beautifully sculpted in Maru-Gurjara architectural style are a mesmerizing sight. The lowermost level of the well is blocked by stones and silt now but earlier it was used as an escape route to the neighbouring villages. It is one of the largest and the most sumptuous structures of its type. Rani-Ki-Vav is now considered to be the queen among the step wells of India. It is said that the size of the Rani Ki Vav is so huge that the tourists appear as ants climbing an anthill.

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When was the Berlin Wall demolished?

In August 1961, the German Democratic Republic began under the leadership of Erich Honecker to block off East Berlin and the GDR from West Berlin by means of barbed wire and antitank obstacles. Streets were torn up and barricades of paving stones were erected. Tanks gathered at crucial places. The subway and local railway services between East and West Berlin were interrupted. Inhabitants of East Berlin and the GDR were no longer allowed to enter the West. In the following days, construction brigades began replacing the temporary barriers with a solid wall, which stood in place for nearly 30 years. In November 1989, after weeks of discussion about new travel laws, the Berlin Wall was demolished.

Fact File:

With the end of communist rule in the USSR, many of the symbols of communism, for example statues of former leaders such as Lenin, were dismantled.

 

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When was the Cold War?

After World War I, the United States and the USSR emerged as the two main powers in the world – known as ‘superpowers’. Although they had fought together to defeat Nazi Germany, differences between the two superpowers soon led to the start of the ‘Cold War’.

The Cold War started in August 1945, and it was a political war between the USSR and its communist allies, and the USA and other non-communist countries. It did not involve any fighting, although there was a threat of military action on several occasions.

Fact File:

Mikhail Gorbachev introduced political, social and economic reform, known as perestroika, when he came to power in Russia.

 

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When did India gain independence?

Many Indians wanted independence from British rule, and a chance to build up industry and wealth in India itself. By the end of World War II it was clear that Britain could no longer ignore the demands of the Indian people. But negotiations were complicated by the demands of Muslims in India. Violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims, and Indians and British leaders eventually agreed to divide India into the two states of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

India gained its independence in August 1947. Millions of Hindus and Muslims fled from their homes. As people tried to move to their new homes, hundreds of thousands of them were killed.

Fact File:

Mohandas Gandhi was known as Mahatma Gandhi. He was assassinated in 1948, at the end of India’s long struggle for independence.

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