Darjeeling is a town in India's East­ern Hima­layas, situated close to the borders with Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China. In the mid-19th century, when much of India was under East India Company rule, Darjeeling was founded as a summer retreat. On the slopes below, tea plantations were laid out where Darjeeling tea is grown. Thousands of labourers from the surrounding regions built the town and worked in the tea plantations. Their descendants constitute the majority of Darjeeling's residents today and give the town a cosmopolitan ethnic mix. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, ascending 2,100 metres (7,000 ft), is a World Heritage Site and a popular tourist experience. The local economy is largely dependent on tourism and tea growing. Population growth has made unregulated construction, traffic congestion and water shortages common. Deforestation has damaged the environment, including the springs that supply the town's water.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darjeeling

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1038:

Upon the death of his uncle Stephen I, Peter became the second king of Hungary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter,_King_of_Hungary

1942:

World War II: The tanker SS Ohio reached Malta as part of an operation to deliver much-needed supplies during the siege of Malta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pedestal

1947:

Jawaharlal Nehru took office as the first prime minister of India, a post he held for 18 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru

1998:

The Troubles: A car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army killed 29 people and injured approximately 220 others in Omagh, Northern Ireland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

teapoy: (originally India) Originally, a three-legged decorative stand or table; now, especially, one with recesses for holding tea caddies and/or a tea service. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teapoy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Those who oppose the novel most vociferously today are of the opinion that intermingling with a different culture will inevitably weaken and ruin their own. I am of the opposite opinion. The Satanic Verses celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelization and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world. It is the great possibility that mass migration gives the world... The Satanic Verses is for change- by-fusion, change-by-conjoining. It is a love song to our mongrel selves.   --Salman Rushdie https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie