Lincoln is a cathedral city and the county town of Lincolnshire, England. It was known to the Celts as Lindon, meaning "the pool", and it was conquered by the Romans in 48 AD. The Roman Army built a legionary fortress on a hill overlooking the lake and the River Witham, naming it Lindum. In 71 AD, the legion was transferred to Eburacum (York), and Lindum was transformed into the colony of Lindum Colonia, housing Roman veterans. Lindum Colonia became a flourishing settlement, but the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD led to the city being mostly deserted by the end of the century. The 5th and 6th centuries AD saw the Germanic Angles settle in the region, and the city became known as Lincylene. During the Viking Age, Lincoln became an important trade hub, and, after the establishment of the Danelaw in 886, Lincoln became the Danish borough of "Hylrborg", and it underwent an economic explosion due to Danish settlement. In 1068, two years after the Norman conquest of England, King William the Conqueror ordered the construction of Lincoln Castle at the site of the old Roman settlement. Lincoln Cathedral was finished in 1092, and its bishops became important magnates of Medieval England. It was the site of the 1141 Battle of Lincoln during "the Anarchy", and, by 1150, Lincoln was among the wealthiest towns in England due to its cloth and wool industries. Lincoln was the site of outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence in 1190, 1255, and 1266 before the Jews were expelled in 1290. The Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII ended Lincoln's status as a religious center, and Lincoln changed hands several times during the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651. Lincoln was reduced to a one-street town by the devastation wrought by the war, but the arrival of the railroads and the Industrial Revolution led to Lincoln's resurgence in the 19th century. During World War I, the first ever tanks were invented, designed, and built in Lincoln, and it continued to be a war production center during World War II. New suburbs were built in the postwar era, and, while deindustrialization took its toll, the gas turbine manufacturing business remained a major employer in Lincoln. In 2019, Lincoln had a population of 97,541 people, 95.6% of whom were white. From 1861 to 1885, Lincoln was a Liberal Party stronghold, but it became a battleground for the Liberals, Conservatives, and the Liberal Unionists from 1886 to 1918. From 1924 to 1931, 1945 to 1979, 1997 to 2010, and 2017 to 2019, Lincoln was represented by a Labour MP, and, as of 2020, its city council was also dominated by Labour. However, it remained a competitive seat which the Conservatives were able to win several times in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
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