Here's a story for Raider Fans. The origin of the Black Hole and the real terror behind the term. The slide above is a 1908 image of an onlooker viewing a space 14 by 18 feet in Calcutta, India. The space was once a Fort William prison cell designed to house no more than three men. One sweltering hot night in 1756, guards placed 146 men in this space meant for three. On the next morning when the door to the overstuffed cell was pried open, only 23 men walked out alive. The rest had either suffocated, succumbed to heat exhaustion or died under the trampling feet of their cellmates.
Still wanna watch that Monday Night game in the Black Hole?
The Black Hole by Jan Dalley
Sunday, 25 June 2006
The Black Hole of Calcutta is still a phrase resonant with terror and mystery. Its impact has ricocheted down the centuries - Mark Twain on his visit to Calcutta in 1846 was keen to see the site of the world-famous atrocity, and every account of Empire since the news first filtered slowly home to the England of 1756, has given a version of it.
The story is starkly simple. The local nawab, Siraj-udûdaulah, an aggressive young hothead who had recently seized power from his peace-loving grandfather, had besieged the nascent British trading town of Calcutta. After a bloody battle lasting five terrifying days, the survivors were herded into a small, airless prison in the vanquished fort. Of the 146 bullied and packed into a space that measured 14 by 18 feet, 123 died an agonising death through the unbearably sweltering night. In the morning, only 23 were alive. It took the weakened survivors 20 minutes to load the bodies from the door so the guards could open it. End of story. Or, rather, start of controversy. Was it an act of brutal barbarism or a bureaucratic blunder? Was it on the scale claimed? Did it even happen at all?
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