Plymouth is a city in the South West of England. It is positioned at the mouths of the rivers Plym and Tamar and at the head of one of the world's biggest and most amazing natural harbors, the Plymouth Sound. Plymouth was one of Britain's prime naval dockyards, a naval tradition that continues to this day. The city was considerably blitzed during World War II, to the extent that roughly twice the amount of housing stock that existed prior to the war was destroyed during it. Although the dockyards were the principal targets, civilian casualties were without doubt very high. Plymouth was also one of the key staging posts for the Normandy landings in June 1944. An yearly influx of 11 million tourists is a major contributor to the local economy.
Many highly adored events and festivals are held in Plymouth as well as the British Fireworks Championships, World Championship Class 1 Powerboat Racing and Music of the Night, a very big outdoor production held every two years in The Royal Citadel involving the efforts of the 29th Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery, The Royal Artillery Band, the band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines and hundreds of resident amateur performers.
The Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery is home to immense collections of fine and decorative arts, natural history and human history. The museum's natural history collection consists of over 150,000 samples of insects, birds, mammals, skeletons, plants, fossils and rocks along with an historic natural history library and archive.
Other museums in Plymouth include the Plymouth Dome, the Plymouth & West Devon Record Office, Smeatons Tower, the Elizabethan House and Merchants House in addition to thousands of historic documents at various other locations.