THE HISTORY OF WARSAW
Although almost 700 years old, Warsaw is considered to be a young city by Polish standards. Warsaw was only starting to emerge as a city from the Mazovian forest, when cities such as: Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw or Kalisz were celebrating their quincentenaries. First traces of settlement in the Warsaw area date from the 10th century. The first notable structure does not come in until the beginning of the 14th century. The major development of Warsaw came along with Mazovian dukes in 1413. The city didn’t differ much from other medieval Polish towns: central square with a nearby church and the whole town surrounded by fortified walls for protection. In 1526 the last duke of Mazovia died without an heir, thus putting Warsaw along with the whole of Mazovia under the direct rule of the Polish king in Krakow. In 1529 Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent since 1569. Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Vilna and Krakow, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and at the same time of the Polish Crown in 1596, when King Sigismund III Vasa moved the capital from Krakow. Between 1655 and 1658 Warsaw was taken and pillaged by the Swedish and Transylvanian forces. The years of the "deluge" destroyed and emptied the city of its cultural goods. A great number of invaluable works of art, books, paintings, tapestries and other historic objects were taken by the invaders. Then followed a period of regression. The 18th century saw some of the most splendid growth of the city. It was during this period that many of the palaces, churches and monasteries were erected and the cultural life flourished, especially during the reign of the last Polish king Stanislaw August Poniatowski. Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of New East Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1807, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the decisions of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the center of the Polish Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with the Imperial Russia. On 27 February 1861 a Warsaw crowd protesting the Russian rule over Poland was fired upon by the Russian troops. Five people were killed. Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863-1864. Despite the Russian occupation, Warsaw continued in its steady development along with a steady population increase. By 1900 Warsaw had 700,000 inhabitants. Poland regained its independence in 1918, along with the end of the World War I and Warsaw became the capital of the newly independent Poland again.

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