The first School for the Blind, High School for Girls, council house and Juvenile Court were all founded in Liverpool. The , NSPCC, Age Concern, Relate, Citizen's Advice Bureau and Legal Aid all evolved from work in the city.
In the field of public health, the first lifeboat station, public baths and wash-houses, sanitary act, medical officer for health, district nurse, slum clearance, purpose-built ambulance, X-ray medical diagnosis, school of tropical medicine, motorised municipal fire-engine, free school milk and school meals, cancer research centre, and zoonosis research centre all originated in Liverpool. The first British Nobel Prize was awarded in 1902 to Ronald Ross, professor at the School of Tropical Medicine, the first school of its kind in the world. Orthopaedic surgery was pioneered in Liverpool by Hugh Owen Thomas, and modern medical anaesthetics by Thomas Cecil Gray.
Oriel Chambers, the first 'modern' building in the world
In the arts, Liverpool was home to the first lending library, athenaeum society, arts centre and public art conservation centre. Liverpool is also home to the UK's oldest surviving classical orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1864, Peter Ellis built the world's first iron-framed, curtain-walled office building, Oriel Chambers, the prototype of the skyscraper.
Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook. The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics. In 1865 Hulley co-founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic Charter.
Shipowner Sir Alfred Lewis Jones introduced the banana to Great Britain in 1884.
In 1897, the Lumière brothers filmed Liverpool, including what is believed to be the world's first tracking shot, taken from the Liverpool Overhead Railway – the world's first elevated electrified railway.
Liverpool inventor Frank Hornby was a visionary in toy development and manufacture and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys.
In 1999, Liverpool was the first city outside the capital to be awarded blue plaques by English Heritage in recognition of the "significant contribution made by its sons and daughters in all walks of life."
source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool
