Short answers, pulled from the story.
Merchants gathered at the Sun Inn on the 2nd of July 1766 to demand a waterway across the Pennines. They needed limestone for mortar and agriculture while their coal mines could not reach the west coast.
John Brindley provided a detailed estimate in 1768 for a distance just less than 140 miles at a cost of £259,777. The first sod was dug at Halsall north of Liverpool on the 5th of November 1770 by the Hon. Charles Mordaunt.
Heavy industry along its route ensured that unlike other trans-Pennine canals the Leeds and Liverpool competed successfully with railways throughout the 19th century. The decision to build broad locks allowed boats of 70 feet length to reach Liverpool while the Bridgewater Canal held boats of 45 feet.
A German bomb fell on the canal in Bootle breaching the waterway during the Second World War. Tank traps lined the banks alongside concrete pillboxes and brick built blockhouses to protect the strategic waterway from potential enemy forces crossing the Pennines.
On the 11th of October 2021 a breach appeared between bridges 109 and 110 closing the stretch between Barrowford and Blackburn. Lock numbers 73 and 80 received part of a £35-million grant from the government's Culture Recovery Fund later that month.