The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Wrocław, Poland.
Prior to 16th century around 550 – At the end of the Migration Period in the present areas of Wrocław, the Slavic tribe of the Lechitic/Polish group Ślężanie settled. 921 – Vratislaus I, Duke of Bohemia, founds the city which holds his latin name Vratislavia 985 – Mieszko I of Poland in power. 1000 Bishopric of Wrocław established. Population: 1,000 (approximate). 1037 – Pagan Uprising. 1038 – Bohemians in power. 1054 – Poles in power. 1109 – August 24: Battle of Hundsfeld (Psie Pole), Polish victory against the invading Germans. ca. 1112/1118 – Wrocław named one of the three major cities of the Polish Kingdom alongside Kraków and Sandomierz in the Gesta principum Polonorum. 1138 – Town becomes capital of Duchy of Silesia within the fragmented Polish realm.
around 1240 – Church of St. Vincent founded by High Duke of Poland Henry II the Pious. 1241 Town besieged by Mongols during the First Mongol invasion of Poland. Burial of Henry II the Pious, killed in the Battle of Legnica, in the Church of St. Vincent, as the first Polish monarch to be buried in Wrocław. 1242 – Church of St. Giles built. 1245 – Franciscan friar Benedict of Poland joined Italian diplomat Giovanni da Pian del Carpine on his journey to the seat of the Mongol Khan near Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Empire. 1257 – Church of St. Elizabeth built. 1262 – Magdeburg rights adopted. 1272 – Cathedral of St. John the Baptist consecrated. 1273 – Piwnica Świdnicka, one of the oldest still operating restaurants in Europe, opened. 1274 – Duke Henryk IV Probus granted Wrocław staple right. 1288 – Holy Cross church founded by High Duke of Poland Henryk IV Probus. 1290 – Death and burial of Henryk IV Probus in the Holy Cross church, that was still under construction, as the second Polish monarch to be buried in Wrocław. 1295 – Holy Cross church consecrated. 1333 – Town Hall building expanded. 1335 – City annexed to the Kingdom of Bohemia. 1342 – Fire. 1344 – Fire. 1348 – Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor visits the city. 1351 – Saints Stanislaus, Dorothy and Wenceslaus church founded. 1362 – St. Mary Magdalene Church built. 1387 – City joins Hanseatic League. 1418 – Guild revolt. 1466 – Meeting of Polish diplomat Jan Długosz and the papal legate in Wrocław, which enabled peace talks between Poland and the Teutonic Order, which culminated a few months later in the signing of a peace treaty in Toruń ending the Thirteen Years' War. 1469 – City passed to Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus. 1474 Siege by combined Polish-Bohemian forces. Meeting of the Polish, Bohemian and Hungarian kings in the village of Muchobór Wielki (present-day district of Wrocław), ceasefire signed. City leaves the Hanseatic League.
1475 – founded the (Holy Cross Printing House), the city's first printing house, which in the same year published the , the first ever incunable in Polish. 1492 – Pillory erected at the Market Square.
16th–18th centuries 1503 – Nicolaus Copernicus became a scholaster of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross. 1523 – Protestant Reformation. 1526 – City passes to Austria. 1530 – City coat of arms adopted. 1585 – Plague. 1625 – Plague. 1633 – Plague. 1666 – Polish Municipal School (Miejska Szkoła Polska) opened. 1670 – Miscellanea Curiosa Medico-Physica, the world's first medical journal published. 1672 – House of the Seven Electors built. 1702 – Leopoldina Jesuit college founded. 1717 – Palace built. 1723 – (publisher) in business. 1741 – Prussians in power. 1742 – Schlesische Zeitung begins publication. 1757 – Austrians in power, succeeded by Prussians. 1760 – City besieged. 1800 – Hospital of the Order of Saint Lazarus converted into a nursing home for elderly people.
19th century 1806 – December: City besieged by forces of the Confederation of the Rhine. 1807 – Old fortifications dismantled. 1808 – City limits expanded by including Przedmieście Oławskie and Przedmieście Świdnickie. 1810 – Lazarist monastery secularised. 1811 – Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelm-Universität established. 1813 – Mobilization against Napoleon of France. 1815 – Royal Museum of Art and Antiquity established. 1817 – Polonia Polish resistance organization founded by Polish students. 1822 – Arrests of members of the Polonia organization and searches of their homes by the Prussian police. 1823 – Population: 76,813. 1824 – Exchange built. 1829 – White Stork Synagogue opens. 1830 – Concert by Fryderyk Chopin. 1833 – Horse racing in Szczytnicki Park begins. 1836 – Slavonic Literary Society founded.
1841 – Opera House opens. 1842 – Upper Silesian train station built. 1846 – Royal Palace building renovated. 1848 Many local Polish students joined the Greater Poland uprising against Prussia. 5 May: Convention of Polish activists from the Prussian and Austrian partitions of Poland.Hahn, p. 92 9 May–8 July: Stay of Polish national poet Juliusz Słowacki, during which he met his mother for the first time in nearly 20 years and the last time.Hahn, pp. 97, 107 1854 – Jewish Theological Seminary founded. 1856 – Jewish Cemetery established in Gabitz. 1857 – Central Station opens. 1861 Local Poles join Polish national mourning after the massacre of Polish protesters by Russian troops in Warsaw in February 1861. City becomes an important center of preparations for the Polish January Uprising in the Russian Partition of Poland. Orchestral Society founded. 1863 Mass searches of Polish homes by the Prussian police after the outbreak of the January Uprising. June: City officially becomes the seat of secret Polish insurgent authorities. New City Hall built. 1864 – January: Arrests of several members of the Polish insurgent movement by the Prussian police. 1865 Zoological Garden opens. Theatre built. 1868 – City limits expanded by including Gajowice, Huby, Nowa Wieś, Dworek, Rybaki and Szczytniki. 1871 City becomes part of German Empire. New Church of St. Michael consecrated. Opera house rebuilt. 1872 New Synagogue consecrated. Piast Brewery in business. 1873 – Population: 208,025. 1880 – Silesian Museum of Fine Arts established. 1883 St. Mauritius Bridge constructed. Lutheran Theological Seminar opens. 1884 – Polish newspaper Nowiny Szląskie begins publication. 1886 – Viadrina (Jewish student society) formed. 1887 – "Government offices" built. 1889 – Tumski Bridge constructed. 1890 – Population: 335,186. 1891 – Concert by Ignacy Jan Paderewski. 1892 – Monopol Hotel built.
1894 Merchants Club built. "Sokół" Polish Gymnastic Society established, as the first branch of the organization in Silesia. 1896 – Kleinburg (Dworek) and Pöpelwitz (Popowice) villages become part of city. 1897 – Zwierzyniecki Bridge constructed. 1899 – Silesian Museum of Applied Arts established.
20th century 1900–1939 1901 – Concert by Ignacy Jan Paderewski. 1903 – Flood. 1904 Herdain (Gaj) and Morgentau (Rakowiec) villages become part of city. Barasch Brothers' Department Store opens. 1905 Population: 470,751. Wrocław water tower built.
1908 – Market Hall built. 1909 Theatre built. Jan Mikulicz-Radecki monument unveiled. 1910 Grunwaldzki Bridge built. Technische Hochschule was founded. 1911 – Gräbschen (Grabiszyn) village becomes part of city. 1913 Centennial Hall and Exhibition Grounds built. Union of Jewish Liberal Youth organized. 1916 – Turnip winter (food rationing). 1919 – City becomes capital of Province of Lower Silesia. 1920 May – Consulate of the Republic of Poland opened. August – Polish consulate attacked and demolished by a German nationalist militia. 1924 – Local branch of the Union of Poles in Germany founded. 1926 – Palace Museum opens. 1927 – Polish scout troop founded. 1928 – City limits largely expanded. 1929 – Workplace and House Exhibition held.
1930 Wertheim Department Store opens. June: City hosts Deutsche Kampfspiele. 12 September: Hitler gives campaign speech at the Centennial Hall. 1931 – Stahlheim rally, at which its German activists declared their disapproval of the interwar German-Polish order and expressed irredentist claims towards Poland and Lithuania. 1932 – Conflict between Communists and Nazis. 1933 January: Riots. March: KZ Dürrgoy, one of the first Nazi concentration camps, established in the present-day district of Tarnogaj. August: KZ Dürrgoy disestablished. 1938 July: Deutsches Turn- und Sportfest 1938 held. November 9–10: Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews. Airport built. 1939 June: Expulsion of Polish students from the university.Cygański, p. 37 August: Headquarters of several local Polish organizations, known as the Polish House, searched by the Gestapo and closed down.
World War II (1939–1945)
1939 September: City made the headquarters of the southern district of the Selbstschutz, led by SS-Oberführer Fritz Katzmann, which task was to commit atrocities against Poles during the German invasion of Poland. September: Mass arrests of Polish activists, Polish organizations banned. 10 November: 173 Polish professors and lecturers of the Jagiellonian University, AGH University of Kraków and Kraków University of Economics imprisoned in the city (see Sonderaktion Krakau). 27 November: Polish professors and lecturers of the Jagiellonian University, AGH University of Kraków and Kraków University of Economics deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. 1940 Ausländer-Auffanglager forced labour camp established by the Germans; its prisoners were mostly Poles, but also Frenchmen, Czechs, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Yugoslavs, Greeks, etc. (mostly men, but also women and children) Rheinmettal–Borsig forced labour camp established by the Germans; its prisoners were mostly Poles (men and women), but also Czechs (men and women), French POWs, Soviet POWs and Jews. Forced labour camp in Sołtysowice established by the Germans; it housed between 4,000 and 10,000 prisoners, mostly Poles, but also Czechs, Ukrainians, Yugoslavs, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Dutchmen and Russians. 20 April: Forced labour camp for Jewish men established by the Germans in the present-day district of Jerzmanowo. September: Forced labour camp for Jews established by the Germans in Żerniki.
1941 – Olimp underground Polish resistance organization formed. 1942 15 February: Forced labour camp for Jewish men in Jerzmanowo dissolved. 15 July: Execution of , commander of the Wojskowa Organizacja Ziem Zachodnich (Military Organization of the Western Lands) Polish resistance organization by the Germans. August: AL Breslau-Lissa subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp established by the Germans, its prisoners were mostly Poles, but also Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Frenchmen, Czechs, Yugoslavs. 1943 April 23: Polish Zagra-Lin attacks Nazi German troop transport. Dulag 410 transit camp for Allied prisoners of war established by the Germans. 1944 March: Forced labour camp for Jews in Żerniki dissolved. August: City declared a Nazi fortress. Three more subcamps of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp established, for prisoners of various nationalities, including one subcamp for women. Deportations of Poles from Warsaw to the forced labour camp in Sołtysowice following the Warsaw Uprising. Prisoners of the Rheinmettal–Borsig forced labour camp evacuated to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in a death march.
1945 January: evacuation of the prisoners of the Gross-Rosen subcamps to the main camp in death marches. 20 January: Rheinmettal–Borsig forced labour camp dissolved. January–April: Construction of a temporary airport, during which thousands of forced labourers were killed. An AGSSt assembly center for Allied POWs established by the Germans. February 13-May 6: Siege of Breslau. April: Bombing of the Ausländer-Auffanglager forced labour camp; death of many prisoners. May 7: Forced labour camp in Sołtysowice dissolved.