What's your local history?

[Colonâ„¢]

Tell us about the place (village/town/city...) you're living in. Doesn't matter if it isn't an illustrious history. (In fact I'd personally be even more interested in the history of dull, unknown places)

[VetLegion]

Great idea

City I live in - Zagreb, capital of Croatia - inhabited by small groups since forever, became a name on the map around 1094 AD. Grew slowly until the industrial revolution, then hit off and has almost a million people now. Was bombed in this war or that, but nothing spectacular as in big battles and maneuvres. We had two Nobel laureates, I think one was from here.

[Dr Strangelove]

I live In Lynchburg, founded by Charles Lynch in the 1750s. Mr. Lynch stowed arrived in the Americas as a stowaway. In order to pay for his fare the captain sold him to one of my ancestors. My ancestor was so taken by Charles' industriousness that he gave one of his daughters in marriage to Charles. Charles' son John went on to invent a quaint American social custom which bears his name even today.

[Heresson]

@@@I live in Gliwice. The town's name comes most likely from gliwiec, old-polish for "decay", and is connected with swamps that used to surround it.
@@@It was mentioned in 1257 or so as a town already, so it must have gotten city rights somewhere around 1250, like nearby Bytom.
@@@It used to be a capital of an independant duchy for a short time, later it was divided in two. Half of the city belonged to one duke, the other to another.
Later, Gliwice became capital of hussite movement in Silesia, and sit of hussite candidate to the czech throne, his name was Zygmunt Korybutowicz I believe, a lithuanian duke. Yet, it was captured by catholic Konrad the Red-Haired, duke of Olesnica, and slowly it became catholic again.
@@@The city prouded itself with beer production. Yet, when it was besieged by Swedes during 30y war, the beer industry was destroyed. The Swedes didn't manage to capture the city, allegedly thanks to help of Virgin Mary, who appeared on the sky and protected Gliwice.
@@@The city was devastated by the war and had to sell some villages, including one that, unf. is an independant city today, yet it retrieved its glory thanks to coal mining and metallurgy industry. it was first place in Europe outside Britain to have Grand Furnace. After Prussians got money from defeated frenchies, the swamps were dried, and a splendorous road connecting market place and new railroad station was built.
An airport was built in Gliwice, and it welcomed some fameous zeppelin. i don't remember was it Graf Zeppelin or hindenburg.
@@@Gliwice was the most germanised city of upper silesian conurbation. While majority of the city suburbs voted for Poland, the city itself voted for Germany after ww1 and was given to it. This time is perhaps the golden age, Gliwice boasted with the most hotels in the region, with one of two most luxurious theatres in Germany. A highway connecting it with Berlin was built.
@@@Gliwice (Gleiwitz) was also the place of the biggest of german - staged "polish attacks", that were excuse for attack on Poland. Germans kidnapped and killed a polish activist, and then staged an attack on Gliwice radiostation, and let the corpse of the guy there, as one of the attackers killed.
The radiostation stands till today, and is allegedly the highest wooden construction in Europe.
@@@After the war, German majority of population was expelled, new polish citizens are in large part resettled from Podole region in Ukraine, like myself. that also ment that some Podolian Armenians, like my grandpa, settled here; Gliwice became the new, though modest, capital of Polish armenians. They have a small church with the most holy icon of Podole.
Also, Gliwice is the capital of polish esperanto movement, its headquaters are located here. It is also a capital of polish chemistry, which has to do with the fact that Gliwice took from Lwow not only the title of armenian capital in Poland, but also it's high technical school, second biggest in Poland.
Gliwice expanding, taking over, aming others, Labedy's riverport, which made it the biggest inland port in Poland.
@@@In capitalism, it became one of the most successful cities of the region, with many foreign investitions.
yet, our - pretty good- president was the best paid president in Poland I think, as was revealed by Poland-wide "chimney affair"

@@@One of the citizens of the city was Oskar Troplowitz, the one that invented cosmetic cremes (Nivea!), toothpaste, adhesive tape )including this thing for wounds). Sadly, he is almost forgotten.
Other reknown Gliwice citizens were Jerzy Buzek and Zbigniew Messner, prime ministers of Poland; Tadeusz Ró¿ewicz, one of the greatest contemporary polish poets; Adam Zagajewski, poet; Stanis³aw Sojka, a musician; Horst Bienek, german writer; Lukasz Podolski, soccer player; Jerzy Zietek, a general and reknown voivod of Silesia; Heresson, the supreme leader of universe.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Heresson
I live in Gliwice. The town's name comes most likely from gliwiec, old-polish for "decay", and is connected with swamps that used to surround it.

In Croatian, "gljivice" means "fungus". Not so in Polish?

it was first place in Europe outside Britain to have Grand Oven.

WTH is Grand Oven?

BTW., what about the Jewish population there. I know it was historically significant in Krakow, how about Gliwice?

[Starchild]

Ah, fair Norwich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich

Capital city of East Anglia and county town of Norfolk. Its been a city for just under a thousand years and at one point was second only to London in importance and was allowed to mint coins. Legend has that Norwich has one church for every week of the year and a pub for every day. Indeed, it still has one of the greatest number of medieval churches in Western Europe. Its history has seen the influx of Dutch, French and Belgian refugees escaping Europe.

Until the arrival of the railways, it was easier to get from Norwich to Amsterdam than from Norwich to London.

Its an alright city. A quiet and slower pace of life than most cities and a bit behind the times. On the other hand, its got a university that's in the top 20 in the UK (the one I go to! ), the highest number of Green Party city councillors in all the the UK, is one of the top ten shopping destinations in the country, quite tolerant to its small but noticable gay/student/immigrant population and nearly a third of its population claims to have no religion at all.

Norwich is...unique. When I like it here, I find it lovely and pretty and a high standard of living. When I dont' like it, I find it small and provincial.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by VetLegion


In Croatian, "gljivice" means "fungus". Not so in Polish?

No... it's grzyby in polish... and I think in ukrainian, so perhaps in russian as well...
but it's an interesting thing... perhaps in old slavic language it ment fungus. It's still better than the "rot" thing, and "pig-house" in czech...

WTH is Grand Oven?

how do I know ?
Well, what You need to know is that it was an important step forward in industry.

BTW., what about the Jewish population there. I know it was historically significant in Krakow, how about Gliwice?

It was little, about 1% of population. Only one synagogue. It was destroyed (but basement) by Germans in the 30s, and was not rebuilt. Some sort of monument was supposed to be built on the spot, but it was not yet.
There are two nice jewish cementaries. One is next to the railway (and, unfortunatelly, next to the place where they keep drunkards), so it is littered. Yet, it contains precious jewish graves, from XVII century onward. Some XIX and XX ones are pretty nice, but can not be compared to magnificent ones at jewish part of Lime cementary. It is very nice, and is nicely covered (though not to the extent of Zabrze cementary) with
ivy, which makes it very nice. neo-gothic cementary Jewish community of Gliwice exist, it has a bureau, but I don't know what's its size. I suspect it's small and consists mostly of old people. It was large shortly after war, and still numerable until 1968
Troplowitz, which I've mentioned, was a Jew.
Also, saint Edith Stein, a Jew, used to live in Gliwice for some time I've heard.

p.s.

profesor Kornhauser, translator of serb and croatian literature to Polish, is from Gliwice as well.

[Colonâ„¢]

I think Heresson means furnace.

[Heresson]

yup

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Heresson
how do I know ?
Well, what You need to know is that it was an important step forward in industry.

What kind of furnace?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Heresson
I live in Gliwice.

Isn't that where Nazi Germany faked an attack on a radio station (done by SS men in Polish uniforms IIRC) to have an excuse for launching WWII?

[Heresson]

oh, I completely forgotten about this part. Let me update it. Thank You

[Zoid]

From Wikipedia:

In the 16th and 17th century, the configuration of Sweden's borders made Gothenburg strategically important as the Swedish gateway to the west, lying on the west coast in the narrow area between the territories of Denmark-Norway. After several failed attempts, Gothenburg was successfully founded in 1621, by King Gustavus Adolphus (Gustaf II Adolf). The Gothenburg coat of arms was based on the lion of the coat of arms of Sweden, symbolically holding a shield with the national emblem, the Three Crowns, to defend against its enemies.

In the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) Denmark-Norway ceded the then Danish province Halland, to the south, and the Norwegian province of Bohus County or Bohuslän to the north, leaving Gothenburg in a less exposed position. Gothenburg was able to grow into an important port and trade centre on the west coast.

The architectural layout was designed by Dutch town planners contracted by the Swedish king; the blueprint for the canals of Gothenburg are actually the same as those used for Jakarta.

In the 18th century, fishing was the most important industry. However, in 1731 the Swedish East India Company was founded, and the city flourished due to its foreign trade with highly profitable commercial expeditions to Asian countries.

The harbour developed into Sweden's main harbour for trade towards the west and with the Swedish emigration to North America increasing, Gothenburg became Sweden's main point of departure. The impact of Gothenburg as a main port of embarkation for Swedish emigrants is reflected by Gothenburg, Nebraska a small Swedish settlement in the United States.

With the 19th century, Gothenburg evolved into a modern industrial city that continued on into the 20th century. The population increased ten-fold in the century, from 13,000 (1800) to 130,000 (1900). In the 20th century major companies that developed were SKF (est. 1907) and Volvo (est. 1926).

In more recent years however, the industrial section has faced a recession, which has spurred the development of new sectors such as increased merchandising and cultural and educational institutions.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Zoid
Göteborg in around 1700 from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna
Enlarge
Göteborg in around 1700 from Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna

You could at least have removed this in your copy&paste.

[Zoid]

More...

The region on the west coast of Sweden has been inhabited for several thousands of years. During the Stone Age, there was incidentally a settlement right on present day Gothenburg. As a reminiscence, there are eleven rock carvings in the Gothenburg area.

The predecessor of present day Gothenburg was Lödöse, 40 kilometers upstream from the present day city on the Göta River, which served as trade centre and port to the west in the Middle Ages. However, Lödöse had problems further down the river – at the Bohus Fortress (present day Kungälv) the Norwegians and the Danes could control the ships to and fro Lödöse and in 1473 the town was moved into a new location called Nya Lödöse (New Lödöse, where the present day suburb Gamlestan in Gothenburg is today). But the new settlement also had its problems and the town dwellers had to seek protection at the old Älvsborg Fortress.

The Swedish king Gustav Vasa tries to build a new city near the old Älvsborg Fortress, but isn't successful. And when Sweden rises as a big European power in the 17th century king Charles IX first tries to make a town settlement on the northern bank of Göta älv and near the outlet to the sea, on the island Hisingen. This is the first time the town is being named Gothenburg. This short lived town is wholly inhabited by Dutch merchants and immigrants. The Swedish king "lured" the Dutch people to Sweden with the promise of free trade and also free practice of religion (the situation in the Netherlands had become problematic). In return Sweden and the west coast could benefit of the Dutch skills and trade connections. But the island of Hisingen was to a fragile position - they couldn't withstand the Danes.

In 1621 the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus II decides the location of present day Gothenburg. The settlement uses the fortification skills of the Dutch immigrants and Gothenburg can grow and prosper within the city walls.

And in 1658 the Treaty of Roskilde makes all of the west coast Swedish and the city can grow into an important port and trade city.