C. N. Annadurai was the first Non-Congress Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in independent India. Anna’s funeral attracted 15 million people and entered the Guinness Book of World Records..
Victory War Memorial was constructed to commemorate the victory of the allied armies during World War I. It subsequently became the Victory War Memorial for later wars. It was nicknamed the ‘Cupid’s bow’ because courting couples from Fort St. George frequented this place.
Fort. St George was the first British fortress in India, completed 1644. The seat of power in Tamil Nadu today, many historians see the structure as the central point around which the city grew.
Mount Road, now called Anna Salai, has a history of 400 years. Originally a cart track used by the European employees of the British East India Company to travel from factories in Fort St.George St Thomas Mount, the road that now exist was shaped during the time of Charles McCartney, Governor of Madras.
The artificial Island Ground has a significant place in Asia’s aeronautical history for it was here that Giacomo D'Angelis, a Corsican-Indian aviation pioneer test flew the first self-engineered airplane in Asia.
Buried in this exclusive cemetery are those who belonged to the Armenian community in Madras, one of its earliest settlers. They were master tradesmen in cotton and textiles.
The Senate House at the University of Madras was where the first elected members of the Madras Legislature met in 1937. The Senate House perhaps played a vital role in the current status of the Cooum. It was here that the decision to build a dam across the river was made, something that eventually choked the flow.
Michael Topping, a marine surveyor, tried to spread the subject with a survey school near Fort St. George in 1794. The school slowly evolved into one for Civil Engineering in 1858 and then the College of Engineering in 1859. This was the first engineering college built outside Europe and was eventually shifted to Guindy.
First English novel by a woman (zion church): Born in Bombay and later moving to Madras, Krupabai Satthianadhan, a medical dropout, became the first women novelist of Indian in 1887 with Saguna.
As a connected development to the textile zone, the British thought a temple would help attract weavers to Chinthatripet. Built in the 1740s, the Adi Kesava Perumal and Adi Pureeshwarar temples were said to have been indirectly funded by the East Indian Company.
Victoria Public Hall: This historic hall saw the first adaptations of Shakespeare’s dramas in Tamil, staged by the famous Pammal Sambanda Mudaliyar in 1900.
The Corporation of Chennai, situated near the Cooum, came into existence in September 1688 and was the first Corporation of Commonwealth outside United Kingdom.
One of the oldest prisons in India, the Madras Central Prison has had several important prisoners during the Independence era including Subash Chandra Bose. Two Indian National Army fighters were also hanged here.
The delay in shipping its plaque may have made it the second oldest medical college in India, but the Madras Medical College had a woman graduate in 1878 even before Britain allowed women into medical colleges.
The great philanthropist Pachaiyappa Mudaliar lived near this temple, which, according to some historians, may have given the Cooum river its name.
Initially called Imperial Hotel and built in 1854 by Rathinavelu Mudaliyar, it became The Connemara in 1890. Today, it is a landmark hotel in the city with the name Taj Connemara.
When Tipu Sultan's sons were taken hostage by Lord Cornwallis till reparations were paid after the Third Mysore War, they were, at their father's request, entrusted to the care of Doveton, who was a friend of Tipu's in 1792. Doveton is now a block in the Women’s Christian College in Chennai.