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Black Hole of Calcutta

noun

  1. a small dungeon in which in 1756 the Nawab of Bengal reputedly confined 146 English prisoners, of whom only 23 survived
  2. informal.
    any uncomfortable or overcrowded place
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


Black Hole of Calcutta

  1. A cell in the jail of a British fort in Calcutta , India . In the middle of the eighteenth century, British and Indian troops clashed at the fort. The Indian troops drove a reported 146 defenders of the fort into the cell, which measured about fifteen by eighteen feet. Many had suffocated by the next morning.

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