Historical Manchester
The Manchester area was settled in or before Roman times. The original fort was constructed by General Gnaeus Julius Agricola as a staging post between Chester (Deva) and York (Eboracum). This Roman settlement was named Mamucium (Celtic for breast-shaped hill) after the hill that it was sited on to be better defensible. The original location of the fort is now in the City of Salford.
During the 19th Century Manchester grew to become the centre of Lancashire's cotton industry and was dubbed Cottonopolis. During this period Manchester had its world famous canal system built as well as the famous Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Manchester quickly grew into the most important industrial centre in the world, and, significantly, the first industrial society. The pace of change was fast and frightening. At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen - new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the so called 'Manchester School', promoting free trade and laissez-faire), new classes or groups in society, new religious sects, and new forms of labour organisation. It attracted educated visitors from all parts of Britain and Europe. "What Manchester does today," it was said, "the rest of the world does tomorrow." Also during this period Manchester saw a rise in its population as Lancastarians, the Irish, Jews and many other people immigrated to the city.
As well as being a centre of capitalism the city saw its fair share of rebellion by the working and non-titled classes, with the most famous being the events on St Peter's Field on 16 August 1819 which have become known as 'Peterloo'. The First Trades Union Congress was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was the subject of Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels himself spending much of his life in and around Manchester. Manchester was also an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement.
Modern Manchester
At 11.20 am on Saturday 15 June 1996, the IRA detonated a large bomb in the city centre, the largest to be detonated on British soil. Whilst this bomb caused over 200 injuries, it caused no deaths, and the principal damage was to the physical infrastructure of nearby buildings. The consequent reconstruction spurred a massive regeneration of the city centre, with complexes such as The Printworks and The Triangle creating new city focal points for both shopping and entertainment. The regeneration took over a decade to complete. The latest and final part of the renovated Manchester Arndale opened in September 2006, allowing the centre to hold the title of Europe's largest city centre shopping mall.
Since the regeneration after the 1996 IRA bomb, and aided by the successful hosting of the XVII Commonwealth Games, Manchester's city centre has changed significantly. Large sections of the city dating from the 1960s have been either demolished and re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel; a good example of this transformation is the Manchester Arndale. Many old mills have been converted into apartments, helping to give the city a much more modern, upmarket look and feel. Some areas, like Hulme, have undergone extensive regeneration programmes and many million-pound lofthouse apartments have since been developed to cater for its growing business community. The 168 metre tall, 47-storey Beetham Tower, completed in 2006, provides the highest residential accommodation in the United Kingdom - the lower 23 floors form the Hilton Hotel, while the upper 24 floors are apartments. The Beetham Tower was originally planned to stand 171 metres in height, but this had to be changed due to local wind conditions.
