Shocking things do most Indians not know.

Shocking things do most Indians not know.

1. That the “western” toilet we use in India today was invented during the period of the Indus Valley civilization (4000 years ago).
2. That had it not been for Kanhoji Angre and his modern (for the day) navy along the Konkan coast, the Europeans would have made serious inroads a hundred years earlier.
3. That the extinction of the dinosaurs, commonly believed to be the result of the meteorite crash in Yucatan peninsula Mexico, is strongly debated by an Indian scientist (Sankar Chatterjee) to be rather a result of the crash that created the massive Shiva crater in today’s Bombay High.
4. That many parts of the Indian mainland are more than 200 crore years old (called cratons), while some are as young as just 5 crore years (the Himalayas).
5. That only three major Indian rivers flow to the West into the Arabian Sea while the majority flow into the Bay of Bengal.
6. That modern day Afghanistan was part of Indian kingdoms earlier.
7. That the English word “juggernaut” is derived from Lord Jagannath of Puri.
8. That strange wall paintings of wormholes and UFOs have been discovered in ancient caves in a secluded place in Raisen, Hoshangabad, MP.
9. That the first ever commercial patent on a genetically modified organism was granted to an Indian in the USA - Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty.
10. That some of the most ancient, untouched, remote tribes known to man live in the Andaman and Nicobar islands - the Jarawa people.
11. That the concept of “atom” was first given by an Indian Rishi Kanad, and not Democritus.
12. That there is no official word “Hindu” in any Hindu scriptures! India had only sampradayas or panths.
13. That perhaps, just perhaps, the famed Apple logo was a result of Steve Jobs’ interaction with Neem Karoli Baba in India who was a Hanuman devotee.
14. That the Mahabharata with 1 lac shlokas or 18 lac words, is often described as "the longest poem ever written". It is ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined! and
15. In 1 AD, India had approximately 33% of the world’s population and 33% of world’s GDP - a topper in both categories! (a position little changed till 1500 AD).