Manchester, UK

Manchester sits on the River Irwell in northwest England, home to roughly 568,000 residents. The 1761 Castlefield cotton mills, refined from Cromford techniques, helped spark the Industrial Revolution, and the 1830 Liverpool and Manchester Railway became the world's first intercity passenger line. The city later hosted the 1911 Rolls Royce factory that produced Merlin engines for Spitfires, and in 1948 the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine ran the world's first stored computer program. The 1996 IRA bomb reshaped the city centre, while the 2002 Castlefield Urban Heritage Park preserves that pioneering railway station.