Paris: History
People have lived continuously on this spot since roughly 250 BC, when a Celtic tribe called the Parisii settled the islands in the Seine that became the Île…
History
Venice: History
Venice was founded by refugees. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century, people fleeing barbarian invasions retreated to the marshy islands of the Venetian Lagoon.…
History of Kyoto
A clear visitor-friendly history of Kyoto, from Heian-kyo and imperial Japan to temples, geisha districts, war survival and modern cultural identity.
Hanoi: History
Hanoi was established as Thang Long, meaning Ascending Dragon, in 1010 by Emperor Ly Thai To, who moved the capital here based on a vision he reportedly had…
San Francisco: History
Everything changes in 1848. Gold turns up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and San Francisco’s population explodes from a few hundred people to tens of thousands within a…
Barcelona: History
Barcelona’s history is inseparable from its Catalan identity — the city has been the capital of Catalonia, a distinct Romance-language-speaking region with its own culture and political aspirations,…
Istanbul: History
Istanbul’s history runs deep enough that it’s genuinely hard to compress — founded as Byzantium by Greek colonists around 657 BC, the city’s real transformation began in 330…
Reykjavik: History
Reykjavik’s founding is traditionally dated to 874 AD, when Ingolfur Arnarson, generally regarded as Iceland’s first permanent Norse settler, established a farmstead at the site according to the…
Abu Dhabi: History
Abu Dhabi’s leap from a modest pearling and fishing settlement to a genuine global capital is almost entirely the story of one man: Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al…
Marrakech: History
Marrakech was founded in 1062 by the Almoravid dynasty — Berber Muslim rulers who, at their height, controlled territory stretching from Morocco into Muslim Spain. The city was…