1.

Legend has it that the city was the birthplace of St George, dragon slayer and patron saint of England.

2.

The real Lady Godiva lived a thousand years ago and was one of the most powerful women in England.

3.

Coventry pioneered twinning in the UK and now has 26 twin towns and cities around the world, including Dresden in Germany and Jinan in China.

4.

The city was the birthplace of jet engine inventor Sir Frank Whittle, poet Philip Larkin and Hollywood actor Clive Owen.

5.

The British car industry was founded by Daimler in a disused Coventry cotton mill in 1896.

6.

Coventry has two universities (Warwick and Coventry) and three cathedrals – the ruins of St Mary’s, destroyed in the 16th century, the ruins of St Michael’s, blitzed in November 1940, and Sir Basil Spence’s modern replacement, consecrated in 1962 and recently voted Britain’s most popular 20th century building.

7.

William Shakespeare was said to have jilted a Coventry woman in the eve of their wedding to marry Anne Hathaway.

8.

In a recent business magazine survey, Coventry was rated the 5th best place to do business in Britain.

9.

In 1955, the city won an international peace prize for its dedication to peace and reconciliation.

10.

All modern bicycles are descended from JK Starley’s Rover safety cycle, invented in Coventry in 1885.

11.

Coventry has three twin towns in the United States, all named after it and all founded by Coventry weavers fleeing poverty and starvation in the 19th century.

12.

Warwick Arts Centre, at the University of Warwick in Coventry, is the busiest arts complex of its kind outside London.

13.

Coventry’s civic charter, dated 1345, was the first of a new kind of municipal charter in England.

14.

Sir Henry Parkes, five times Premier of New South Wales and the father of modern Australia, was born in Coventry in 1815.

15.

Legendary R and B star Chuck Berry recorded his biggest hit My Ding-A-Ling at a Coventry dance hall while on a UK tour in 1972.

16.

Among the crowds at the 1951 Godiva Procession in Coventry was a Belgian couple who were about to launch a new confectionery company. Inspired by the story, they decided to call it Godiva Chocolates.

17.

Coventry’s post-war reconstruction gave it the first traffic-free shopping precinct in Europe.

18.

Royal Parliaments were held in Coventry in 1404 and 1459, the latter during an 18 month period when King Henry VI made the city his capital.

19.

A 1955 Hollywood version of the Godiva story featured Clint Eastwood, in his first film role, playing a Saxon soldier.

20.

In 1955, the city won an international peace prize for its dedication to peace and reconciliation.

21.

In 2005 Yoko Ono planted two Japanese trees in the gardens of Coventry Cathedral in memory of a visit she and John Lennon made to the cathedral in 1968.

22.

There are 120 languages spoken by children in Coventry schools.

23.

Coventry Transport Museum houses the biggest collection of British-built vehicles in the world, including Thrust SSC, the current holder of the World Land Speed record.

24.

The London black taxi cab, a global symbol of Britain, has always been made in Coventry.

25.

Graham Sutherland’s famous cathedral tapestry was the largest in the world when it was made. It has more than 900 different colours in it and is guaranteed for 500 years.

26.

John Davenport, born in Coventry in 1597, became one of the pioneers of the New Haven colony in the US and helped to found Yale University.

27.

Coventry Canal is the only waterway in Britain to terminate in the centre of a city.

28.

In the Middle Ages, Coventry’s celebrated Mystery Plays regularly had royal visitors. They are now performed every three years in the old cathedral ruins.

29.

2-Tone music, which emerged from Coventry at the end of the 1970s, gives the city a hallowed place in the annals of British popular music, alongside Liverpool and Manchester.

30.

Of Coventry’s 300,000 inhabitants, one in ten has Irish roots and there are significant new communities from Iraq, Poland, Zimbabwe and the Congo.

31.

In a recent study, Coventry rated 6th among cities in Britain for the number of patent applications for new inventions.