The area of the Danube Valley round where modern Vienna stands has been inhabited for many thousand years and Celtic settlements had been established in the vicinity some 500 years before the Romans turned up in around AD 9 to construct a military camp called Vindobona.
Vienna was first documented as a city in 1137, but it was the gift to his son by the Rudolf of Habsburg that signified the birth of the city as an important centre and also the point at which the seeds for the Austrian Empire were sown.
Through the 16th and 17th centuries the empire faced many external threats and the most worrying to the locals were the Turks led by Suleman the Magnificent. In 1528, they lay siege to the city and destroyed many areas outside the walls. After a period in which the city suffered Plague and a period of steep decline the Turks returned in 1683 but an army from Germany and Poland sent them packing and a period of building followed that included many of the most famous Baroque buildings that still remain its famous baroque face.
By the 20th century, the city was in slow decline, and the destruction of the Austro Hungarian empire after WWI was worsened by heavy allied bombing towards the end of WWII which damaged many public buildings, and after being under control of the allies for a decade, in 1955 Austria was finally returned to the Austrians and the country joined the United Nations.
Although as the city enters the 21st century as the gateway between east and west, a revival is taking place that is seeing Vienna shaking off its old rather stuffy reputation and embracing the future.
