Short answers, pulled from the story.
Birmingham is the second-largest city in Britain, with about 1.2 million people in the city proper, and it is the largest local authority district in England by population. It serves as the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands.
The name Birmingham comes from the Old English Beormingahām, meaning the home or settlement of the Beormingas, a tribe whose name means 'Beorma's people'. The -ingahām ending suggests the settlement probably existed by the early 7th century at the latest.
James Watt and Matthew Boulton developed the industrial steam engine in Birmingham in 1776. The city also produced the world's first cotton mill in 1741, the lead chamber process for sulphuric acid in 1746, and the Soho Manufactory in 1765, and its residents registered over three times as many patents as any other British town between 1760 and 1850.
The Birmingham Blitz was the heavy bombing of Birmingham by the German Luftwaffe from the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943. The damage, combined with a deliberate policy of demolition and new building, led to extensive urban regeneration in later decades.
On the 5th of September 2023, Birmingham City Council issued a Section 114 notice stating it could not meet its financial commitments after an equal pay lawsuit. Contributing factors include a £1.1 billion sum paid out since 2010 for equal pay claims and an ongoing bill of £760 million rising by £14 million a month.
Birmingham was a centre for early heavy metal and home to Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and half of Led Zeppelin, and it was the birthplace of modern bhangra in the 1960s. The Balti curry was invented in the city, along with food brands including Typhoo tea, Bird's Custard, Cadbury's chocolate and HP Sauce.