Changes

== History ==

== History ==

Originally a Roman military settlement named ''Mamcumium'', and later of a tenth century [[burh]] (Anglo-Saxon fortified place), Manchester was of only regional importance until the [[Industrial Revolution]], when it became a major centre of the [[cotton]] industry and renowned as a "shock city", a place where new urban and social developments were undertaken. Manchester and its environs saw the first large-scale application of factory technology and organisation; Manchester was the first city to experience full-scale suburbanisation; it was (with Liverpool) the first city to have a fully locomotive-hauled public railway, in 1830. It also experienced in full measure the negative aspects of this headlong rush to modernise and urbanise in its terrible slums, described in a dramatic piece of reportage by [[Friedrich Engels]], ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (1844-45; first published in English 1892). In recent years the city centre has seen large scale renovation, including that of a quarter damaged by an [[IRA]] [[terrorist]] bomb in 1996. The city is home to the [[University of Manchester]] and [[Manchester Metropolitan University]].

Originally a Roman military settlement named ''Mamcumium'', and later of a tenth century [[burh]] (Anglo-Saxon fortified place), Manchester was of only regional importance until the [[Industrial Revolution]], when it became a major centre of the [[cotton]] industry and renowned as a "shock city", a place where new urban and social developments were undertaken. Manchester and its environs saw the first large-scale application of factory technology and organisation; Manchester was the first city to experience full-scale suburbanisation; it was (with Liverpool) the first city to have a fully locomotive-hauled public railway, in 1830. It also experienced in full measure the negative aspects of this headlong rush to modernise and urbanise in its terrible slums, described in a dramatic piece of reportage by [[Friedrich Engels]], ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (1844–45; first published in English 1892). In recent years the city centre has seen large scale renovation, including that of a quarter damaged by an [[IRA]] [[terrorist]] bomb in 1996. The city is home to the [[University of Manchester]] and [[Manchester Metropolitan University]].

The city was the home of the free trade, anti corn law movement, led by Cobden and Bright, and recalled in the Free Trade Hall. This movement sought to abolish government interference in the free market of goods (the 'Corn laws', which restricted grain imports to Britain, impeding industrialisation and the economic welfare of the population, in favour of the interests of a feudal landed clique of aristocrats), and can be seen as pioneering free market economics.

The city was the home of the free trade, anti corn law movement, led by Cobden and Bright, and recalled in the Free Trade Hall. This movement sought to abolish government interference in the free market of goods (the 'Corn laws', which restricted grain imports to Britain, impeding industrialisation and the economic welfare of the population, in favour of the interests of a feudal landed clique of aristocrats), and can be seen as pioneering free market economics.