Did you know ...

where the first factory on the European mainland was built?

In Ratingen, near Düsseldorf – the former Cromford Cotton Spinning Mill is now one of the sites of the LVR (Rhineland) Industrial Museum. At the end of the 18th century Johann Gottfried Brügelmann, an extremely rich merchant and textile magnate from Wuppertal decided to take a lesson from England (Cromford) – you can call this industrial espionage, if you like – and in 1784 he built what was most probably the first factory on the European mainland.