Newcastle upon Tyne

The history of Newcastle begins in AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at this point.

Early in the 600s the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira joined to form Northumbria. The 600s became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe.

In 1080 William the Conqueror sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots, and Robert built a wooden castle here. The settlement, then known as Monkchester, took its name from the castle. It was replaced by a stone castle in 1087.

The Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew was founded in 1086 near today's Nun Street. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated, close to the new castle, where the Anglican cathedral stands today.

Henry II replaced the castle with a rectangular stone keep, built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. Much of the keep you can see in the city today dates from then. The great outer gateway, the Black Gate, was added between 1247 and 1250.

The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick.

The earliest known charter, from 1175, gave the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor and allowed guilds, known as Mysteries, to form.

In 1265 the town was allowed to charge a 'Wall Tax' to pay for a wall to protect it from Scottish invaders. The 25-foot-high stone wall wasn't finished until the early 1300s.

Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1275 it was the sixth largest wool-exporting port in England. By 1350 the burgesses had a royal licence to export coal.

In 1296 a wooden galley 135 feet long was built at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of an order of twenty ships from the king.

Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town, and during the 1300s Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times.

In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter that separated the town from Northumberland and made it 'a county of itself', with its own courts and its own sheriff.

St Nicholas' Cathedral has an elegant lantern tower from 1474. The building was begun in the 1100s, and its last addition, apart from the vestries, was the main porch in 1726.

From 1530 a royal act gave a group of Newcastle burgesses, the Hostmen, control of the coal trade from Tyneside. The phrase 'taking coals to Newcastle', meaning bringing something to a place that already has more than enough of it, was first recorded in 1538.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, Newcastle's five friaries and its nunnery were closed in about 1540, and their land was sold to the corporation and rich merchants.

After the Reformation, coal exports grew dramatically: from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and 400,000 tons in 1625.

In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. In the 1630s about 7,000 of the town's 20,000 people died of plague: more than a third.

The Scots invaded Newcastle in 1640, during the Second Bishops' War. In the English Civil War the town was besieged for many months in 1644, and Charles I was imprisoned in Newcastle by the Scots in 1646–47. The city's motto, Fortiter Defendit Triumphans ('triumphing by brave defence'), was added in the 1640s.

In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, came to Newcastle from Stourbridge and set up glasshouses along the Close to make high-quality flint glass. From 1730 to 1785 Newcastle glassmaking was at its height.

In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze statue on horseback in Sandhill and threw it into the Tyne.

In 1715 an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Unlike the rest of the region, Newcastle resisted them and declared for King George I, which is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie' for people from Newcastle.

The city's first hospital, the Newcastle Infirmary, opened in 1753. It was paid for by public subscription.

In 1771 a flood swept away much of the old bridge, built in 1250. A temporary wooden bridge was used until 1781, when a new stone bridge was finished.

The Literary and Philosophical Society was founded in 1793, half a century before the London Library. Its lecture theatre was the first public building to be lit by electric light, during a lecture by Joseph Swan on 20 October 1880.

In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert set up the world's first locomotive factory, near Forth Street. Robert helped design Rocket, the forerunner of modern locomotives, and the works built locomotives until 1960.

Between 1835 and 1842 the builder Richard Grainger built classical streets in the city centre, in an area that includes Grey Street and the Grainger Market. When the market opened in 1835 it was said to be one of the largest and most beautiful in Europe. In 2005 BBC Radio 4 listeners voted Grey Street England's finest street.

Bainbridge, established in 1838, is often called the world's first department store. Its founder, Emerson Bainbridge, sold goods in departments, a new way of trading at the time.

Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge of 1849 was the first road and rail bridge in the world. In 1850 Queen Victoria opened the city's railway station, the joint-first covered station in the world.

On 6 October 1854 a fire started on the Gateshead quayside, and an explosion spread it across the river to the Newcastle quayside. The fires and explosion destroyed a lot of property and killed 53 people.

In 1876 the low-level bridge was replaced by the Swing Bridge, which can swing round on a central point to let ships pass on either side. Warships could now sail up river to have their armaments fitted at the Elswick works.

Newcastle was granted city status on 3 June 1882. In the 1800s shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to its wealth, and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution.

Newcastle United has been based at St James' Park since it was set up in 1892. Today the stadium holds more than 52,000 seated fans.

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, and in 1897 he founded the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. That year Turbinia ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead.

The city's first art gallery, the Laing Art Gallery, opened in 1904. It's named after its founder, Alexander Laing, a Scottish wine and spirit merchant who wanted to give something back to the city where he'd made his fortune.

Work began in 1925 on a new high-level road bridge across the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. Built by Dorman Long, the Tyne Bridge was opened by King George V in 1928.

In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Its roots go back to a School of Medicine and Surgery set up in 1834.

In the 1960s the internationally successful rock group the Animals emerged from Newcastle night spots such as Club A-Go-Go on Percy Street.

Martin Luther King visited the city to receive an honorary degree from Newcastle University. In 2017 the Freedom City festival marked 50 years since his visit.

In 1967 Smith's Crisps created salt and vinegar flavour crisps. They were first made by its Newcastle subsidiary, Tudor Crisps, and tested in the north-east before going on sale across the country.

The Metro, a new rapid transport system linking Tyneside, opened in August 1980: Britain's first urban light rail system. It reached Newcastle Airport in 1991 and Sunderland in 2002.

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a tilting foot and cycle bridge 126 metres long, was finished in 2001, linking Newcastle's Quayside more closely with Gateshead's.