Warsaw History
1374 Warsaw is founded
1413 Warsaw becomes capital of Mazovia
1569 Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania unite as the Republic of Two Nations
1572 King Zygmunt II August dies heirless – end of Jagiellonian dynasty; beginning of Polish Baroque period
1596 Warsaw becomes Poland's capital when King Zygmunt III Waza (Vasa) makes it his permanent residence
1655 Warsaw is destroyed during the war with Sweden
1683 Jan III Sobieski breaks the Turks' siege of Vienna
1696 Death of Jan III Sobieski
1764-72 Reign of Stanislaw August Poniatowski, the last King of Poland
1791 Democratic constitution is passed by the Sejm
1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko leads the insurrection against the partitioners of Poland
1795 Third partition – Poland ceases to exist until 1918. Warsaw is under Prussian rule
1807 Duchy of Warsaw is established under Napoleon with Warsaw as its capital
1810 Chopin is born just outside of Warsaw
1815 Congress Kingdom of Poland is established, but is ruled by the Russian tsar
1830 & 1863 Armed uprising against Russian rule
1918 Poland regains its independence and Warsaw becomes capital of the Second Republic
1939-45 Nazi German occupation begins; Jews are forced to live in a walled-in ghetto and then sent to concentration camps
1943 Liquidation of the Jewish ghetto; remaining 300,000 are sent to their deaths at Treblinka concentration camp
1944 Warsaw uprising lasts 63 days – 200,000 people are killed; entire population is deported and city is destroyed
1945 Warsaw is liberated and becomes the capital again
1955 Stalin builds the Palace of Culture
1981 Solidarity movement begins; martial law is imposed
1989 Free elections mark the end of the communist regime
2004 Poland joins the EU
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