Liverpool

A minor port city in the North West of England until it was awarded a City Charter by King John in 1208. However, it was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Liverpool developed into a major global city. This prominence was based largely on trade, including tobacco, sugar and a major involvement in the slave trade. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1806, Liverpool continued to flourish as an industrial trade and financial industries center. Liverpool has the largest number of listed buildings outside of London, more notable Georgian buildings than Bath and more public sculpture outside the City of Westminster. The Liverpool waterfront is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Liverpool is noted for its two cathedrals, one Anglican and one Roman Catholic. The former, a traditional design from the early 1900s is built from local sandstone. The Catholic cathedral built in a modern style during the 1970s is affectionately known as Paddy's Wigwam or the Mersey Funnel - a pun on the pioneering Mersey Tunnel constructed under the river between Liverpool and Birkenhead.

Liverpool is the European Capital Of Culture for 2008.

Around 1911 Adolf Hitler visited his brother Alois who lived and worked in Liverpool. It is believed that as a result of him seeing Liverpool's position as a port and centre of shipbuilding, during World War II he directed the Luftwaffe to target the city.

The city currently has a population of approximately 450,000, known as 'Scousers' after a popular local dish, with the wider Merseyside region having a population of 1.5 million. The city itself is divided up into villages such as Aigburth, West Derby, Aintree and Knotty Ash. The popular culture and 'soul' of Liverpool has most memorably been portrayed by the author and dramatist Carla Lane in a number of highly-regarded television dramas including "The Liver Birds" and "Bread". Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale are also noted playwrights from Liverpool. Bleasdale effectively portrayed the misery and deprivation of 1980s Liverpool in dramas such as The Black Stuff, Giro Day and Dole Ponce, while Russell, probably the most well-known of current Liverpool writers has enjoyed huge success with offerings such as Educating Rita, Blood Brothers and Shirley Valentine.

British Prime Minister Harold Wilson later Lord Wilson of Rievaulx was Member of Parliament for the Liverpool constituency of Huyton from 1945 until 1979.

Famous natives of Liverpool:

• Arthur Askey (comedian and actor)
• Cilla Black (singer, TV presenter)
• Stan Boardman (comedian)
• Cherie Blair (prominent lawyer and amateur comedian)
• Tony Booth (actor and father-in-law of Tony Blair)
• Billy Butler (comedian)
• Jamie Carragher (footballer and comedian)
• Daniel Craig (actor) from nearby Hoylake
• Ken Dodd (poet, comedian and singer)
• Kenny Everett (disc jockey and comedian)
• Robbie Fowler (footballer)
• Steven Gerrard (footballer)
• Fanny Hare (actress)
• Derek Hatton (politician and scally)
• Lord Liverpool (British Prime Minister)
• Terry McDermott (footballer and archetypal Scouser)
• George Melly (jazz singer and author)
• Derek Nimmo (comic actor)
• John Peel (disc jockey and radio personality)
• John Prescott (comedian)
• Ted Ray (comedian)
• Anne Robinson (TV presenter and journalist)
• Norman Rossington (comedian and actor)
• George Stubbs (artist)
• Jimmy Tarbuck (comedian)
• Ricky Tomlinson (trade unionist, actor, comedian and banjo player)

Many of the above are strong ambassadors for Liverpool and despite worldly success display their loyalty by continuing to live nearby in the county of Buckinghamshire.

Culture

• Merseybeat
• The Beatles
• Echo and the Bunnymen
• Tate Modern
• The Liverpool Poets
• The Scaffold
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• Siegfried Sassoon

Sports

• Everton FC Soccer
• Liverpool FC Soccer
• Liverpool St Helens RUFC
• St Helens RLFC
• Tranmere Rovers Soccer