Paris France History

By parisian on 10/09/2009 in Paris Short History

Paris France History and historical place Tour du Temple

Beginnings

The earliest archaeological signs of permanent habitation in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the River Seine from around 250 BC. The Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC, with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the Île de la Cité. The Gallo-Roman town was originally called Lutetia, but later Gallicised to Lutèce. It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.^[21] The collapse of the Roman empire and the fifth-century Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By 400 AD, Lutèce, by then largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into the hastily fortified central island. The city reclaimed its original appellation of “Paris” towards the end of the Roman occupation. The Frankish king Clovis I established Paris as his capital in 508.

Middle Ages to 19th century

Paris’s population was around 200,000 when the Black Death arrived in 1348, killing as many as 800 people a day, and 40,000 died from the plague in 1466. According to Biraben, plague was present in Paris for almost one year in three in the 16th and 17th centuries to 1670. Paris lost its position as seat of the French realm during occupation of the English-allied Burgundians during the Hundred Years’ War, but regained its title when Charles VII of France reclaimed the city from English rule in 1436. Paris from then became France’s capital once again in title, but France’s real centre of power would remain in the Loire Valley until King Francis I returned France’s crown residences to Paris in 1528.

During the French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic party. In August 1572, under the reign of Charles IX, while many noble Protestants were in Paris on the occasion of the marriage of Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV, to Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre occurred; begun on 24 August, it lasted several days and spread throughout the country. During the Fronde, Parisians rose in rebellion and the royal family fled the city (1648). King Louis XIV then moved the royal court permanently to Versailles, a lavish estate on the outskirts of Paris, in 1682. A century later, Paris was the centre stage for the French Revolution, with the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and the overthrow of the monarchy in September 1792.

Nineteenth century

Paris was occupied by Russian Cossack and Kalmyk cavalry units upon Napoleon’s defeat on the 31st of March 1814; this was the first time in 400 years that the city had been conquered by a foreign power. The ensuing Restoration period, or the return of the monarchy under Louis XVIII (1814–1824) and Charles X, ended with the July Revolution Parisian uprising of 1830. The new ‘constitutional monarchy’ under Louis-Philippe ended with the 1848 “February Revolution” that led to the creation of the Second Republic.

Throughout these events, cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 ravaged the population of Paris; the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the population of 650,000.

The greatest development in Paris’s history began with the Industrial Revolution creation of a network of railways that brought an unprecedented flow of migrants to the capital from the 1840s. The city’s largest transformation came with the 1852 Second Empire under Napoleon III; his préfet Haussmann levelled entire districts of Paris’ narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades that still make much of modern Paris; the reason for this transformation was twofold, as not only did the creation of wide boulevards beautify and sanitize the capital, it also facilitated the effectiveness of troops and artillery against any further uprisings and barricades that Paris was so famous for.

The Second Empire ended in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and a besieged Paris under heavy bombardment surrendered on 28 January 1871. The discontent of Paris’ populace with the new armistice-signing government seated in Versailles resulted in the creation of a Parisian “Commune” government, supported by an army in large part created from members of the City’s former National Guard, that would both continue resistance against the Prussians and oppose the government “Versaillais” army. The result was a bloody Semaine Sanglante that resulted in the death, many by summary execution, of roughly 20,000 “communards” before the fighting ended on May 28, 1871. The ease at which the Versaillais army overtook Paris owed much to Baron Haussmann’s earlier renovations.

France’s late 19th-century Universal Expositions made Paris an increasingly important centre of technology, trade and tourism. Its most famous were the 1889 Universal Exposition to which Paris owes its “temporary” display of architectural engineering prowess, the Eiffel Tower, a structure that remained the world’s tallest building until 1930; the 1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first Paris Metro line.

Twentieth century

During World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared a German invasion by the French and British victory at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1918–1919, it was the scene of Allied victory parades and peace negotiations. In the inter-war period Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic communities and its nightlife. The city became a gathering place of artists from around the world, from exiled Russian composer Stravinsky and Spanish painters Picasso and Dalí to American writer Hemingway.

On 14 June 1940, five weeks after the start of the Battle of France, an undefended Paris fell to German occupation forces. The Germans marched past the Arc de Triomphe on the 140th anniversary of Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Marengo. German forces remained in Paris until the city was liberated in August 1944 after a resistance uprising, two and a half months after the Normandy invasion. Central Paris endured World War II practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (train stations in central Paris are terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs). Also, German General von Choltitz did not destroy all Parisian monuments before any German retreat, as ordered by Adolf Hitler, who had visited the city in 1940.

In the post-war era, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as cités and the beginning of the business district La Defense. A comprehensive express subway network, the RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs, while a network of freeways was developed in the suburbs, centred on the Périphérique expressway circling around the city.

Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the north and eastern ones) have experienced deindustrialization, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment. At the same time, the city of Paris (within its Périphérique expressway) and the western and southern suburbs have successfully shifted their economic base from traditional manufacturing to high-value-added services and high-tech manufacturing, generating great wealth for their residents whose per capita income is among the highest in Europe. The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the 2005 riots which largely concentrated in the north-eastern suburbs.

Twenty-first century

Paris is considered today to be one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in Europe. In order to alleviate social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan economy of Paris, several plans are currently underway. The office of Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region was created in March 2008 within the French government. Its office holder, Christian Blanc, is in charge of overseeing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans for the creation of an integrated Grand Paris (“Greater Paris”) metropolitan authority (see Administration section below), as well as the extension of the subway network to cope with the renewed growth of population in Paris and its suburbs, and various economic development projects to boost the metropolitan economy such as the creation of a world-class technology and scientific cluster and university campus on the Saclay plateau in the southern suburbs.

In parallel, President Sarkozy also launched in 2008 an international urban and architectural competition for the future development of metropolitan Paris. Ten teams which bring together architects, urban planners, geographers, landscape architects will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st century in the Kyoto Protocol era and make a prospective diagnosis for Paris and its suburbs that will define future developments in Greater Paris for the next 40 years. The goal is not only to build an environmentally sustainable metropolis but also to integrate the inner suburbs with the central City of Paris through large-scale urban planning operations and iconic architectural projects.

Meanwhile, in an effort to boost the global economic image of metropolitan Paris, several skyscrapers (300 m (984 ft) and higher) have been approved since 2006 in the business district of La Defense, to the west of the city proper, and are scheduled to be completed by the early 2010s. Paris authorities also made public they are planning to authorise the construction of skyscrapers within the city proper by relaxing the cap on building height for the first time since the construction of the Tour Montparnasse in the early 1970s. (Text Source: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia)

Paris History Datelines

■ 3rd century B.C. The Parisii settle around the area that is now Paris.

■ 53 B.C. Julius Caesar mentions Paris in De Bello Gallico.

■ A.D. 250 St. Denis introduces Christianity.

■ 360 Julian the Apostate proclaimed emperor of Rome; Lutetia is renamedParis and becomes imperial capital.

■ 508 Clovis, king of the Franks, chooses Paris as his capital.

■ 786 Carolingians move their capital to Aix-la-Chapelle.

■ 800 Charlemagne crowned HolyRoman Emperor.

■ 885–886 Viking invasions; Comte Eudes defends Paris.

■ 987 Eudes’s grandnephew Hugues Capet proclaimed king.

■ 1066 William the Conqueror invades England.

■ 1140 St-Denis, the first Gothic cathedral, is built just north of Paris.

■ 1163 Construction of Notre-Dame begins.

■ 1215 The University of Paris founded.

■ 1357 Etienne Marcel’s revolt.

■ 1420 English occupy Paris.

■ 1431 English burn Joan of Arc at the stake in Rouen.

■ 1436 End of English occupation.

■ 1515–47 Reign of François I.

1530 Foundation of the Collège de France.

■ 1562 Start of the Wars of Religion.

■ 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

■ 1594 Henri IV converts to Catholicism.

■ 1598 Edict of Nantes.

■ 1604 The Pont Neuf completed.

■ 1605 Place des Vosges built.

■ 1610 Henri IV assassinated.

■ 1635 Richelieu founds Academie Francaise.

■ 1643–1715 Reign of Louis XIV.

■ 1789 Storming of the Bastille and the beginning of the French Revolution.

■ 1790 The Festival of the Federation.

■ 1793 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette guillotined. The Louvre becomes a public museum.

■ 1794 Robespierre guillotined.

■ 1799 Napoléon enters Paris.

■ 1804 Napoléon crowns himself emperor.

■ 1815 Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo. The Bourbons are restored to the throne of France.

■ 1830 Louis-Philippe replaces Charles X.

■ 1832 A cholera epidemic kills 19,000 people.

■ 1848 Revolution. Louis Napoléon elected “prince-president.” The Second Republic proclaimed.

■ 1852 Louis Napoléon proclaimed Emperor Napoléon III.

■ 1863 The revolutionary Impressionist exhibit at the Salon des Refusés.

■ 1870 The Third Republic proclaimed.

■ 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.

■ 1871 The Paris Commune.

■ 1875 Construction of the Opéra Garnier completed.

■ 1885 Victor Hugo dies.

■ 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris; the Eiffel Tower erected.

■ 1900 First Métro line opens.

■ 1914–18 World War I.

■ 1920 The Unknown Soldier is buried under the Arc de Triomphe.

■ 1929 Construction of the Maginot Line.

■ 1940 Germany invades France and occupies Paris.

■ 1944 Normandy landings; Paris liberated.

■ 1946–54 War in Indochina.

■ 1958 The Fifth Republic proclaimed; Charles de Gaulle elected president.

■ 1960 Most of France’s African colonies gain independence.

■ 1962 Algeria becomes independent.

■ 1968 Strikes and student demonstrations. De Gaulle resigns.

■ 1969 The old central markets at Les Halles transferred to Rungis.

■ 1970 RER (Réseau Express Régional) train inaugurated.

■ 1977 Centre Georges Pompidou opens.

■ 1981 François Mitterrand elected president.

■ 1989 Bicentennial of the French Revolution. The Louvre pyramid and the Opera Bastille inaugurated.

■ 1991 Edith Cresson becomes France’s first female prime minister.

■ 1992 Disneyland Paris opens in suburban Marne-la-Vallée.

■ 1995 Jacques Chirac, former mayor of Paris, becomes president.

■ 1996 Bibliotheque Nationale de France opens in southeast Paris.

■ 1997 Lionel Jospin takes office as prime minister.

■ 1998 The French host the World Cup soccer title, and its team, the Bleues, win it—the first time the French have won the championship.

■ 1999 Two storms with hurricane-force winds hit France, ravaging millions of trees, including 10,000 in Versailles, destroying thousands of homes and cutting off power to parts of France for more than a month.

■ 2000 Spectacular fireworks at the Eiffel Tower herald the millennium. The French Bleues win the EuroCup soccer title, the first team in the history of the sport to win both a World Cup

and a Eurocup soccer title.

■ 2001 The French win the Eurocup title for the second year in a row.

■ 2003 France opposes the war with Iraq, causing a significant decline in U.S. visitors. President Jacques Chirac’s approval rating hits an all time high of 85%. (Text Source: Frommers)

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