Bradford power station

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

The Bradford City stadium fire occurred during a Football League Third Division match on Saturday, 11 May 1985 at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, killing 56 spectators and injuring at least 265. The stadium was known for its antiquated design and facilities, which included the wooden roof of the main stand. Previous warnings had also been given about a major build-up of litter in the cavity below the seats in the stand. The stand had been officially condemned and was due to be replaced with a steel structure after the season ended. The match between Bradford City and Lincoln City, the final game of that season, had started in a celebratory atmosphere with the home team receiving the Third Division championship trophy. At 3.40 pm, television commentator John Helm remarked upon a small fire in the main stand; in less than four minutes, with the windy conditions, the fire had engulfed the whole stand, trapping some people in their seats. In the panic that ensued, fleeing crowds escaped on to the pitch but others at the back of the stand tried to break down locked exit doors to escape. Many were burnt to death at the turnstiles gates, which had also been locked after the match had begun. There were many cases of heroism, with more than 50 people later receiving police awards or commendations for bravery. The disaster led to rigid new safety standards in UK stadiums, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. It was also a catalyst for the substantial redevelopment and modernisation of many British football grounds within the following thirty years. Bradford City continues to support the burns unit at the University of Bradford as its official charity.

Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are managed by Mark Hughes. The club's home ground is the 25,136-capacity Valley Parade, which was the site of the Bradford City stadium fire on 11 May 1985, which took the lives of 56 supporters. The club was founded in 1903 and immediately elected into the Football League Second Division. Promotion to the top tier followed as they won the 1907–08 Second Division title and then they went on to win the 1911 FA Cup Final, which remains the club's only major honour. They were relegated in 1922 and again in 1927, before winning the Third Division North title in 1928–29. Another relegation in 1937 did allow the club to go on to win the Third Division North Cup in 1939, however a further relegation followed in 1962 to leave the club in the newly created Fourth Division. They secured promotions back into the third tier in 1969 and 1977, but were relegated in 1972 and 1978. They found success in the 1980s under the stewardship of first Roy McFarland and then Trevor Cherry, winning promotion in 1981–82 and following this up with the Third Division title in 1984–85, though they were relegated out of the Second Division in 1990. Bradford were promoted back into the second tier via the play-offs in 1996, before securing another promotion in 1998–99 to reach the Premier League, marking a return to the top-flight after a 77-year absence. They entered Europe and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2000–01 but ended the campaign with relegation from the Premier League. A succession of financial crises followed as the club entered administration twice in two years and further relegations followed in 2004 and 2007 to leave the club back in the fourth tier. They found success under the management of Phil Parkinson by reaching the 2013 League Cup final and then going on to win that year's League Two play-off final but were relegated from League One in 2019. They are the only professional football club in England to wear claret and amber, and have worn these colours throughout their history. They have though been known by various nicknames, with the "Bantams" being the most commonly used nickname as it appears on the current club crest. Supporters hold West Yorkshire derby rivalries with Huddersfield Town and Leeds United, as well as a historic Bradford derby rivalry with the now non-league side Bradford (Park Avenue).

Valley Parade, known as the University of Bradford Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is an all-seater football stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Built in 1886, it was the home of Manningham Rugby Football Club until 1903, when they changed code from rugby football to association football and became Bradford City. It has been Bradford City's home since, although it is now owned by former chairman Gordon Gibb's pension fund. It has also been home to Bradford (Park Avenue) for one season, and Bradford Bulls rugby league side for two seasons, as well as host to a number of England youth team fixtures. Football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to redevelop the ground when Bradford City were promoted to the First Division in 1908. The stadium underwent few changes until the fatal fire on 11 May 1985, when 56 supporters were killed and at least 265 were injured. It underwent a £2.6 million redevelopment and was re-opened in December 1986. The ground underwent significant changes in the 1990s, and early 2000s, and now has a capacity of 25,136. The record attendance of 39,146 was set in 1911 for an FA Cup tie against Burnley, making it the oldest surviving attendance record at a Football League ground in the country. The highest attendance at Valley Parade, as it is now, is 24,343, set at a pre-season friendly against Liverpool in 2019.

Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is governed by a metropolitan borough named after the city, the wider county has devolved powers. It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census; the second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds, which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 546,412, making it the 7th most populous district in England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city grew in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world"; this in turn gave rise to the nicknames "Woolopolis" and "Wool City". Lying in the eastern foothills of the Pennines, the area's access to supplies of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of a manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment. There is a large amount of listed Victorian architecture in the city including the grand Italianate city hall. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since a 1974 reform, the city limits have been within the current wider borough. From the mid-20th century, deindustrialisation caused the city's textile sector and industrial base to decline and, since then, it has faced similar economic and social challenges to the rest of post-industrial Northern England, including poverty, unemployment and social unrest. It is the third-largest economy within the Yorkshire and the Humber region at around £10 billion, which is mostly provided by financial and manufacturing industries. It is also a tourist destination, the first UNESCO City of Film and it has the National Science and Media Museum, a city park, the Alhambra theatre and Cartwright Hall. The city is the UK City of Culture for 2025 having won the designation on 31 May 2022.

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.

The Oastler Shopping Centre, formerly known as the John Street Market and commonly known as just the "Oastler Centre" to locals, is a market located on Westgate in the city centre of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.The centre contains 176 stalls comprising a retail area of 25,538² ft, with an additional 23 external shops and 27 storerooms. The cafes and stalls within the centre are various food, clothing and craft shops with some of the cafes and stalls having been in business since the 1960s.The original market site was built on 30 June 1930, then called the John Street Market, and was an open air market, compared to the indoor market centre it is today. The original outdoor open-air market was renovated to an indoor market in the early 2000s to make economic improvements to the upper side of the city centre and was named for the abolitionist Richard Oastler.As part of the Bradford's regeneration projects in line with the successful UK City of Culture 2025 bid, the Oastler Centre will be demolished in late 2023 to make way for the new Darley Street Market.

The 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning was the arsenic poisoning of more than 200 people in Bradford, England, when sweets accidentally made with arsenic were sold from a market stall. Twenty-one victims died as a result. The event contributed to the passage of the Pharmacy Act 1868 in the United Kingdom and legislation regulating the adulteration of foodstuffs.

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.

Manningham railway station was a railway station in Manningham, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, England between 1868 and 1965.

Bradford Synagogue is a synagogue at 7 Bowland Street in Bradford, West Yorkshire, affiliated with the Movement for Reform Judaism. It adopted its present name in 2018. The synagogue is still used for Shabbat and major festivals although the community is small and has been in decline for some years. Friday night dinners are held as well as a communal seder for Passover.

Feversham Girls' Academy (formerly Feversham College) is an Islamic secondary school and sixth form for girls located in the Undercliffe area of Bradford, in the English county of West Yorkshire.It was established in 1994 as a private school, before becoming a state-funded voluntary aided school in 2001, coordinating with Bradford City Council for admissions. The school converted to academy status in 2011.Feversham Girls' Academy offers GCSEs and Cambridge Nationals as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of A-levels and BTECs. The school also has a specialism in science.