Portsmouth is a port city in Hampshire, England, located 70 miles southwest of London and 19 miles southeast of Southampton. In 501, the pirate Port and his two sons killed a Briton noble and founded Portesmutha. In 787, the port was assaulted and conquered by Danish pirates, and, in 838, another Danish fleet plundered the area. In 1001, the Danes nearly annihilated the population of the city after returning once more to plunder the area, but, the next year, the survivors massacred the Danes in the St. Brice's Day massacre. In 1180, the modern city was founded by Jean de Gisors, and it was granted a royal charter by King Richard I of England on 2 May 1194. In 1378, Portsmouth was burned by the French during the Hundred Years' War, only for the inhabitants to fight back and defeat them. Under King Henry V, Portsmouth's first permanent fortifications were founded, and King Henry VIII built the world's first dry dock at Portsmouth. In 1545, during the Italian Wars, the English ship Mary Rose sunk off Portsmouth during the Battle of the Solent, with King Henry VIII watching as its 500 crew drowned due to the ship's poor design. In the 19th century, Portsmouth became the most industrialized site in the world as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and the Palmerston Forts were built at Portsmouth in 1859. In 1926, Portsmouth became a city, and it was bombed extensively during World War II; it also served as the main port of embarkation for the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944. In 1997, Portsmouth became a unitary authority. In 2019, Portsmouth had 238,800 residents (855,679 in the urban area), with 84% being white British, 4.3% white other, 6.1% Asian, 1.8% black, 2.7% mixed, and 1.1% other.
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