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Doncaster

Doncaster is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. During the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Roman Army built a fort called Danum at a crossing over the River Don, building a road to the fort in the 50s AD and a route through the Derbyshire hills during the late 70s AD. Doncaster served as an important staging post on the Roman road between Lincoln and York, and the garrison was commanded by the Dux Britanniarum himself. During Sub-Roman Britain, the city became known as Cair Daun, and the Anglo-Saxons renamed it to Donneceaster. The 9th-century AD Danish king of Jorvik, Halfdan Whiteshirt, used Doncaster as his main base of operations, as York housed King Ricsige of Northumbria. Following the Norman conquest of England, the Normans built Conisbrough Castle to protect Doncaster, and it was ceded to Scotland under the 1136 Treaty of Durham and was never formally returned to England. In 1194, King Richard the Lionheart granted Doncaster a town charter, and it was granted a market in 1248. By 1334, Doncaster was the wealthiest town in southern Yorkshire, but its population was reduced to 1,500 in 1379 by the Black Death. Doncaster continued to expand during the 16th and 17th centuries, although plague outbreaks continued to trouble the town. On 2 May 1664, King Charles II of England awarded Doncaster "free borough" status in recognition of its loyalty during the English Civil War, as great numbers of Yorkshire gentlemen had rallied to King Charles I of England at Doncaster on 18 August 1645 during the First English Civil War. Doncaster became a metropolitan borough in 1974, and, by 2019, it had three constituencies in Parliament: Doncaster Central, Doncaster North (both held by Labour since their creation in 1983), and Don Valley (held by Labour from 1922 to 2019, when Conservative candidate Nick Fletcher won the seat amid a conservative wave). In 2011, Doncaster had a population of 109,805 people.

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