Early mention of Bengal can be found in the Mahabharata and in Ptolemy`s geography. Bengal was then a seafaring nation, sending traders to Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java and being visited by Greeks, Chinese and Persians either by sea or over land. The East India Company formed its earliest settlements in Bengal in the first half of the 17th century. These settlements were of a purely commercial character. In 1620 one of the Company`s factors was based in Patna; in 1624-1636 the Company established itself, by the favour of the emperor, on the ruins of the ancient Portuguese settlement of Pippli, in the north of Orissa; in 1640-1642 an English surgeon, Gabriel Boughton, obtained establishments at also in Orissa, and at Hughli, some miles above Calcutta, where the already had a settlement.

The difficulties which the Company`s early agents encountered more than once almost induced them to abandon the trade, and in 1677-1678 they threatened to withdraw from Bengal altogether. In 1685, the Bengal factors, seeking greater security for their trade purchased from the grandson, in 1696, the villages which have since grown up into Calcutta, the metropolis of India, namely Kalikata, Sutanuti and Govindpur. They were given exemption from trade duties and exactions in part of Bengal in 1717 by the Emperor. During the next forty years the British had a long and hazardous struggle alike with the Mughal governors of the province and the armies which invaded it. In 1756 this struggle culminated in the fall of Calcutta to Nawab followed by and recapture of the city. The established British military supremacy in Bengal, and procured the treaties of 1765, by which the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa passed under British administration.

Medieval History
Bengal has a glorious past. It played a prominent part in the history, both in the ancient and the medieval ages. The British established their foothold in India from here in the battle of Plassey in 1757. From the end of the 19th century onwards Bengal was one of the most prosperous territories of the British Empire. A new Bengali culture developed under the British Raj. Temples were built; poets and writers such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore enhanced the Bengali language. Major religious philosophers like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda appeared. A sense of Bengali and all-India nationalism developed.

Modern History
The attempted partition of Bengal in 1904 by Lord Curzon into a Hindu West and a Muslim East, and the removal of the capital to New Delhi inflamed nationalist feelings. The partition of the country finally took place in 1947 Bengal was divided into two parts, East Bengal and West Bengal. The Muslim majority districts of East Bengal, consisting of the Chittagong and Dacca Divisions and some other Muslim-majority districts became what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and rest came to be known as West Bengal and became a constituent of the Indian union. The territory of Cooch Behar was merged with West Bengal on January 1, 1950 and the former French possession of Chandernagore became part of the State on October 2, 1954. Under the States Reorganization Act, 11956, certain portions of Bihar State were also transferred to West Bengal.