Canterbury is a historic cathedral city in Kent, England. It was settled by the Brythonic Cantiaci as Dorouernon before the Roman Empire conquered Britannia in the 1st century AD and established the settlement of "Durovernum Cantiacorum". The Romans rebuilt the city with grid-patterned streets, a theatre, a temple, a forum, and public baths, and the Romans fortified the city with a seven-gate wall in the late 3rd century AD. After the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, Durovernum Cantiacorum was abandoned and decayed, but, during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, the Jutes occupied the city and renamed it Cantwareburh ("stronghold of the Kentishmen"). In 597, when Pope Gregory I sent Augustine to convert King Aethelbert of Kent to Christianity, Augustine established his episcopal see at Canterbury, which became the center of the Christian faith in England after the 672 Synod of Hertford. In 842 and 851, Danish raids inflicted heavy losses on the local population, and, in 1011, the Vikings besieged and captured Canterbury, pillaging the city and murdering Archbishop Alphege in 1012. When William the Conqueror invaded in 1066, the residents of Canterbury remembered their earlier suffering and submitted peacefully. William built a motte-and-bailey castle by the Roman wall, and it became a stone castle during the 12th century. Following Thomas Becket's murder in 1170, Canterbury became home to his shrine and thus became one of Western Europe's most popular pilgrimage sites. In 1215, Canterbury Castle fell to the French during the Barons' Wars, but the death of King John of England caused the rebellious barons to support the young King Henry III of England against Prince Louis. The Black Death reduced the population from 10,000 in 1348 to 3,000 at the start of the 16th century, and the city again suffered during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when the castle and Archbishop's Palace were sacked and Archbishop Simon Sudbury murdered in London. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, King Henry VIII dismantled the abbey, and the pilgrimages to Canterbury ended. By the 17th century, 2,000 of Canterbury's 5,000 residents were French Huguenot refugees who introduced silk weaving to the city. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the castle was demolished, and the silk industry had been destroyed by 1820 due to the importation of Indian muslins. During the 1840s, the railroad had reached Canterbury, whose population increased from 15,000 to 24,000 from 1830 to 1900. During World War II, 119 civilians were killed and 731 homes and 296 other buildings destroyed, especially during the June 1942 Baedeker Blitz. The city expanded during the 1960s. By 2011, Canterbury had a population of 55,240 people.
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