Park meetings banned

- On 22 May 1896, Manchester City Council passed a bye-law banning the use of public parks for political meetings, raising the issue of what kinds of activity would be permitted in public spaces and how (and by whom) they should be policed. The 1896 bye-law was amended in January 1897 after the intervention of the Home Secretary, Sir Matthew Ridley, and political meetings were permitted in the city's parks. Although the new byelaws allowed such meetings subject to certain conditions such as not raising money, tensions continued to prevail about the political content of such meetings. The ILP and the suffrage movement were now tolerated and Manchester's largest parks saw audiences of significant numbers attend meetings organised by the WSPU in the summer of 1908 - up to 50,000.

- The areas of Chorlton, Moss Side & Whalley Range were bombed in December 1940 when 700 people were killed and 2,500 injured.

- The Manchester Docks closed in 1982 having been the third busiest port in Britain at its height.