Bradford

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.

Bradford Forster Square railway station serves Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The majority of services to/from the railway station use Class 333 electrified trains operated by Northern Trains, on the Airedale Line to Skipton, the Wharfedale Line to Ilkley and the Leeds-Bradford Line to Leeds. The other main railway station in the city is Bradford Interchange, about 10 minutes on foot from Forster Square, from where services operate along the Caldervale Line to Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield, Manchester Victoria, Blackpool and London King's Cross. Bradford Interchange is situated at a higher level, across the city centre, than Forster Square. The Bradford Crossrail proposal to link the two stations is currently viewed as unlikely to proceed.

LIFE Church UK, formerly the Abundant Life Church, is a Christian megachurch established and based in Bradford, England. The church has additional facilities in Warsaw and describes itself as "one church, three locations" (Bradford, Warsaw and Online). Sunday services are regularly streamed online. In 2003 it had an attendance of over 2,000 people; by 2006, the figure had climbed to 2,800.

The Diocese of Bradford is a former Church of England diocese within the Province of York. The diocese covered the area of the City of Bradford, Craven district and the former Sedbergh Rural District now in Cumbria. The seat of the episcopal see was Bradford Cathedral and the bishop was the diocesan Bishop of Bradford. The diocese was founded on 25 November 1919 from part of the Diocese of Ripon and dissolved in the creation of the Diocese of Leeds on 20 April 2014. The church of Saint Peter was elevated to cathedral status in 1919.

The Midland Hotel is a 90-bedroom three-star Victorian hotel in Bradford city centre, owned and managed by London-based Peel Hotels. The architect was Charles Trubshaw, who was contracted to design many railway stations for Midland Railway Company.Construction of the hotel began in 1885 and took five years to complete. It was built by the Midland Railway Company as part of the original Forster Square Railway Station, as a showpiece for the company's northern operations. Following the "golden age of steam" the hotel fell into disrepair until it was bought by Bradford entrepreneur John Pennington in 1992, who restored it and the hotel re-opened as the Pennington Midland Hotel in 1993. It was sold to Peel Hotels in December 1998, who returned it back to its original name.During its life, the hotel has played host to many famous guests, including Sir Henry Irving, an English stage actor, who died there in 1905.The corner block of the hotel on Lower Kirkgate (pictured) was made a grade II listed building in 1983.

Bradford Power Station (also known as Valley Road Power Station) was an electricity generating site located on Valley Road in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The primary source of fuel was coal which was railed into the sidings adjacent to the Bradford Forster Square to Shipley railway line. The plant operated for 79 years and had cooling towers constructed from wood and was noted for its 300-foot (91 m) chimney that was supposed to vent smoke away from the valley floor in Bradford Dale that the power station was located on. The commissioning of a power station in Bradford as operated by the Bradford Corporation, made it the first municipal supplier of electricity in the United Kingdom.

Bradford Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of St Peter, is an Anglican cathedral in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, one of three co-equal cathedrals in the Diocese of Leeds alongside Ripon and Wakefield. Its site has been used for Christian worship since the 7th century, when missionaries based in Dewsbury evangelised the area. For many centuries it was the parish church of St Peter and achieved cathedral status in 1919. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building.

The Broadway is a shopping and leisure complex in the centre of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, which opened on 5 November 2015. It was built and was operated, in its first year, by the Westfield Corporation but is owned by Ellandi. It is currently operated by Munroe K Asset Management Ltd. Buildings were demolished and roads rerouted to make way for the development in 2004; but because of continued failure to secure buy-in from enough businesses, construction did not begin in earnest until January 2014: for most of the intervening years, the site had little apart from a deep excavation, though from 2010 the area round the edge of the site was laid out as an urban park. The "hole in the ground" was very unpopular in Bradford, and at one point the site was occupied by protestors.

The Al Mahdi Mosque is an Ahmadi Muslim mosque in Bradford, England. The mosque was built at a cost £2.5 million entirely from voluntary donations of British Ahmadi Muslims. The mosque was opened on 7 November 2008 by Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the current and fifth caliph of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. With a capacity of 2,000 worshippers, it is among the largest in the city. The inauguration was attended by many Ahmadi Muslims and over 300 guests. The mosque, on Rees Way, was built at the top of a hill and is visible from miles around within the city.In 2014, the mosque was the host of BBC Radio 4's topical debate programme Any Questions?.

The sieges of Bradford (also known as the Battle of the Steeple), were two very short-lived sieges that took place separately in the town of Bradford, Yorkshire, in December 1642 and early July 1643, just after the Royalist victories in Pontefract (1642), and the Battle of Adwalton Moor (1643) respectively. In the second siege, with the Parliamentarian forces dispersed to the west in and around Halifax, the Earl of Newcastle subjected Bradford to a brief siege to enforce rule and allegiance to the king. The first siege gave rise to the term "Bradford Quarter", apparently a misinterpretation by the defenders of Bradford who, on hearing a Royalist officer asking for quarter, assured him that they would "quarter him". The term "give them Bradford Quarter", was used by the Royalists against the defenders of the Bradford during the second siege. The second siege was noted for its apparent salvation from slaughter after the Earl of Newcastle was visited by a wraith-like figure imploring him to "pity poor Bradford...". The sieges were also notable in that to protect the church and steeple, bales of wool were hung from the tower in an effort to deflect, or deaden the impact of cannon-fire from the Royalists. The siege was said to have decimated Bradford and afterwards, famine and pestilence followed in its wake which affected Bradford for a hundred years. Some even state that as Bradford was withered, it allowed Leeds to flourish as the powerhouse in the region.

City is an electoral ward within the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council. City covers the centre of Bradford within the inner ring road and the areas of Shearbridge, Lister Hills, Brown Royd, Dirk Hill, Little Horton Green and part of Lidget Green all to the west of the commercial centre.It is part of the Bradford West parliamentary constituency.

The Peace Museum, Bradford is the only museum dedicated to the history and (often untold) stories of peace, peacemakers and peace movements, in the UK.The Peace Museum aims to engage, inform and inspire through: items in its collection and exhibitions of learning and education activities for all sectors of the community, schools, colleges and universities, focusing on local, national and international people, events and stories posing questions about equality, diversity, cohesion, peace and non-violence telling stories of peacemakers and peacemaking.The museum asks visitors to consider peace and peacemaking as an active, as opposed to passive endeavour, a challenge and something that requires effort, asking "What could you do?" What story will you tell".The initial idea of creating a peace museum arose in the mid-1980s from Gerald Drewett of the Give Peace a Chance Trust. In 1990 this was carried forward when Shireen Shah, an MA student at Bradford University’s Peace Studies Department, wrote a dissertation proposing a ‘Museum for Peace’. Two years on, the International Network of Museums for Peace held its first conference at the University of Bradford in 1992, during which it was proposed that a Peace Museum be established in Bradford. A committee was established to seek finance and general support for the idea. Initially called ‘The National Peace Museum Project’, the museum was established in 1994 through a five-year grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Foundation and operated from a temporary site in Bradford in the Wool Exchange. In 1998 the museum moved to its present site on the top floor of 10 Piece Hall Yard, in Bradford city centre. The museum has a varied temporary exhibition programme, hosting several exhibitions and displays throughout the year. Past exhibitions have ranged from 'Challenging the Fabric of Society' showcasing the protest banners that are part of its textile collection (until March 2017), 'Remembering the Kindertransport' to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (until April 2017) and 'A force for peace? The History of European Cooperation' (ended 2016) exploring the peace history behind the European Union.