What's your Hometown known for?

[Uncle Kram]

My hometown is Birmingham, England - "The Second City" in the UK. The city is known for :

UB40
Duran Duran
The Move
ELO
Wizzard
Judas Priest
Steve Winwood
Moody Blues
Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne
Ocean Colour Scene
Dexys Midnight Runners
Cadburys chocolate
Fort Dunlop - home of tyres
Bakelite
Birds Custard
Joseph Lucas - Electrical component giant
The Bull Ring
The Rotunda
Spaghetti Junction
Aston Villa Football club
Matthew Boulton - Industrialist
William Murdoch - pioneer of gas lighting
Bill Oddie - birdwatching Goodie
Neville Chamberlain - Prime minister when WW2 started
IRA pub bombings in 1974
National Exhibition Centre & National Indoor Arena
HP Sauce
Land Rover
Spitfire & Lancaster bombers manufactured by Vickers
Jaguar Cars
Chad Valley toys
Comedian Jasper Carrott
More canals than Venice
The Birmingham 6
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
G8 Summit 1998
The Balti Triangle - Birthplace of the Balti
The Jewellery Quarter
Manufacture of James Watts steam engines
Austin Cars
Amy Turtle
MG Rover
Morris Cars
Metro-Cammell - Railway carriage & wagon builders
Comedien Tony Hancock
Lord of the Rings Author JRR Tolkien
The Gun Quarter (800,000 guns to U.S.Civil War)
BSA Motorbikes (Originally Birmingham Small Arms gunmakers)
The first Lloyds bank
Birmingham Mint
Think Tank
Uncle Kram

You should be at the top of the list, Unc.

[spot]

You'll just have to guess where this is, then. Far more fun that way. We're the Third City of the land - after York.

Adam Hart-Davis
Beagle 2
Being a City and County
Bristol Cars
Cameron Balloons
Cary Grant
Christopher Gaze
Concorde
David Walliams
Edmund Burke
Elizabeth Fry
Fitting out 2000 ships for the slave trade
Hugo Weaving
Humphrey Davy
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
John Cabot's 1497 voyage of exploration to North America
John Wesley founding Methodism in 1738
Johnny Morris
Paul Dirac
Portishead
Putting out for the King during the Civil War
Rolls Royce Aero engines
Romans (not a thing Birmingham can boast, if I remember)
Shipping half a million Africans to the Americas
The Black Death
The Bristol Brabazon
The Bristol L
The Clifton Suspension Bridge
The Free Ashton Court festival
The Great Western Railway
The International Balloon Fiesta
The Plimsoll line which saved lots of seamen's lives
The Zoo
Thomas Chatterton
Three Castles Woodbine and Embassy
Tony Benn
Tony Robinson
Wallace and Gromit
Wills Whiffs

[Sheryl]

At one time we had the largest grain elevators in the world.

Seems like nothing compared to Spot's and Kram's hometowns.



Ohhh yea we are also home to the Beast. A 40 ft mobile BBQ grill.

[devist8me]

Sucker Days! It was just this weekend and I missed it

http://www.nixa.k12.mo.us/districtin...uckerdays.html

[Bez]

Lancing

St Marys Church built around 960 AD

Used to grow the best tomatoes in England

Largest 'village' in England

Several literary and artistic individuals are associated with both villages including the poets Trelawney and Swinburne and the author Anna Sewell, who wrote “Black Beauty”.

Like many other locations along the English Channel, both Sompting and Lancing were heavily involved in Smuggling.

The enigmatic and romantic soldier monks, known as the Knights Templar, were present here in mediaeval times, particularly at Sompting & Cokeham.

[Uncle Kram]

Originally Posted by spot

Romans (not a thing Birmingham can boast, if I remember)

There was a Roman presence in Birmingham. Icknield Road which passes through the city centre was the Roman link road between the Fosse Way and Watling Street which passes ¼ mile from my house

[Uncle Kram]

Originally Posted by devist8me

Sucker Days! It was just this weekend and I missed it

http://www.nixa.k12.mo.us/districtin...uckerdays.html

I love that kind of thing. Made me think of Groundhog Day for some reason

[chonsigirl]

Baltimore, Maryland:

Crabs! Best in the world!
Ravens football.
Orioles baseball.
Ft. McHenry
Lots of historical reasons, site of many battles, in many wars.
Inner Harbor
Edgar Allan Poe (Raven must have come from here, her sig did!)

[spot]

Originally Posted by Uncle Kram

There was a Roman presence in Birmingham. Icknield Road which passes through the city centre was the Roman link road between the Fosse Way and Watling Street which passes ¼ mile from my house

Here can't really claim Romans, to be perfectly honest. There's a roman road runs up Blackboy Hill onto the downs, in a straight line to Sea Mills - that's where the Romans had a seaport serving Bath. So yes, we have remains in the local museum, but nobody actually lived in town back then.

Umm... the Fosse goes from Bath to Lincoln (though I suspect it might have extended all the way to Poole Harbour - nobody agrees with me) and that's a long way from Brum. And Watling Street came from London and crossed the Fosse well to the east, too - south of Hinckley, presumably. Just outside Coventry at a guess. This is too vague, I need to go and check...

Icknield St (Ryknield St)

Icknield Street, or Ryknild/Rycknield Street as it's also known, is a Roman road in Britain that runs from Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire where it connected to the Fosse Way, to Templeborough in South Yorkshire.

It passes across the far west of warwickshire through Alcester (where it crosses the Salt Road) and Studley. The road then runs through Redditch, Birmingham (where a large fort was located), Lichfield, and what is now Derby.

It acquired the name Icknield Way during the 12th century but it is now called Icknield Street (or Ryknild Street) to distinguish it from the older Icknield Way, an Iron Age trackway running from Norfolk to Dorset.

Much of the route of the Icknield Street is still used by modern roads, most notably the A38 from Lichfield to Derby. A preserved section of the original Roman road can be seen at Sutton Park in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham.

Well all I can say is that it's bloody bent, then. And that site says the Fosse started in Exeter before it got to Bath. Pah. I still reckon I'm right.