Paris is also the center of French economy, politics, traffic and culture. Paris has many art museums and historical buildings. As a traffic center, Paris has a very good underground subway system (called the "Metro"). It also has two airports. The Metro was built in 1900, and its total length is more than .
The city has a multi-cultural style, because 19% of the people there are from outside France. There are many different restaurants with all kinds of food. Paris also has some types of pollution like air pollution and light pollution.
Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic "Parisii" tribe in 51 BC. The Romans called the place Lutetia of the Parisii, or "Lutetia Parisiorum". The place got a shorter name, ""Paris"", in 212 AD.
As the Roman Empire began to fall apart in the West, the Germanic tribe called the Franks moved in, taking it in 464. In 506, their king Clovis I made it his capital. Charlemagne moved his capital to Aachen in Germany, but Paris continued as an important town and was attacked by the Vikings twice. When Hugh Capet became king of France in 987, he again made Paris his capital. For a long time, the kings only controlled Paris and the surrounding area, as much of the rest of France was in the hands of barons or English. During the Hundred Years' War, the English controlled Paris from 1420 to 1437.
During the Protestant Reformation, a huge massacre of French Protestants started there in 1572, called the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Paris saw many other troubles over the years of the ""Ancien Régime"" (Old Kingdom), then in 1789, the French Revolution began in Paris, leading to more massacres.
Paris was the Capital of the French Empire which, as well as France, covered Spain, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, most of Germany and some of Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. The Empire ruled by Napoleon was from 1804-1814/1815. The Russian army seized Paris from Napoleon in 1814, and the Prussian army captured it in 1871. The next time it was captured was by the Nazi Germans in 1940. The Allies freed the city in 1944 and it has not since been captured.
Paris has an oceanic climate in the Köppen climate classification. It has warm summers and cold winters, and rainfall year-round.
Paris has much to offer for sightseeing. Here are five very famous examples:
Because the city of Paris is roughly only 6 miles across, visitors have a wide range of options when it comes to transportation. While much of the more well-known attractions are in the center of the city and are best experienced by walking, there are many destinations that require other means of transport. While taxis offer a fast and relatively inexpensive means of travel, Paris’ public transportation system offers an enjoyable, stress-free way to explore the city.
The Paris Métro system was built in 1900 by engineer Fulgence Bienvenüe and architect Hector Guimard. The Métro covers over 124 miles with 300 stations and 16 lines. Servicing over 6 million residents and tourists every day, the Métro was designed to be an efficient and reliable alternative to the congestion of traffic. Every building in Paris is less than 500 meters from a train station, so accessibility is never a problem. The 16 Métro lines are identified by their final destinations. A rider can simply select the appropriate line and take it in the direction s/he wants. The Métro stations are well marked, and there are ticket booths at most entrances.
There are five airports that serve Paris: Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly Airport, Beauvais-Tillé Airport and Paris–Le Bourget Airport, and Châlons Vatry Airport.
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, sometimes called The "Shoah" (""), was a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically killed people during World War II. About six million Jews were killed, as well as five million others that the Nazis claimed were inferior (mostly Slavs, communists, Romani/Roma people, people with disabilities, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses). These people were rounded up, put in ghettos, forced to work in concentration camps, and then killed in gas chambers. Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David, a symbol of their religion.
There was hatred and persecution of Jews (anti-Semitism) in Europe for hundreds of years. Many people wrongly thought that all Jews became rich by stealing money from other people, such as Christians; that they did not like people other than their fellow Jews; and that they harmed children to use their blood for religious rituals (blood libel). These beliefs were not true, and were based on stereotypes and prejudices.
However, these beliefs were popular in the German-speaking world and elsewhere in the late 1800s.
Adolf Hitler was born in Austria during this time, when many people disliked Jews. He may have been jealous of Jewish success in Austria. However, in a book he wrote called "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), he said it was the Jews' fault that Germany and Austria lost World War I. He also wrote that Germany's economic problems were the Jews' fault. Many people agreed with Hitler’s ideas and supported him as the leader of the Nazi Party.
Not all deaths were written down, so the exact numbers are unknown. However, various sources approximate:
Led by Hitler, the Nazis killed millions of Jews. They forced Jews to wear the golden Star of David on their upper bodies. Jews were rounded up by the thousands and crammed into trains that took them to concentration camps like Auschwitz as well as death camps. Most of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were not German. They were from Poland or the Soviet Union.
The Nazis killed millions of people, hundreds at a time, with poison gas in special rooms called gas chambers. They forced others to dig giant holes in the ground where, after days of hard work, Jews and other prisoners were shot, buried, and burned in a mass grave. The Nazis executed many others by shooting, stabbing, or beating them to death. Still, others died in forced marches from one camp to another. Many other people died of starvation, diseases, and freezing to death because of the terrible conditions in the concentration camps.
On the other hand, there were people who saved Jews from the Holocaust, because they thought it was the right thing to do. Some of them were later given "Righteous Among the Nations" awards by Yad Vashem.
Some people say the Holocaust did not happen at all, or was not as bad as historians say it was. This is called Holocaust denial. However, almost all historians agree that the Holocaust did happen and has been described correctly. Many Holocaust deniers profess that the Nazis did not kill as many people as historians say. Instead, they claim many of these people died from disease or lack of food, usually in order to shift blame from the Nazis. These ideas have been disproven by historical accounts, eyewitness evidence, and documentary evidence from the Nazis themselves. Also, many Jews were killed because Hitler ordered it. In some countries in Europe, including Germany, it is against the law to say that the Holocaust never happened.
Kyoto
Kyoto () is a city in Japan. This city was the capital of Japan from 794 until 1868.
Kyoto is a major city in the Kansai region of Japan. Its population is 1.5 million people. The city of Kyoto is the capital city of the prefecture of Kyoto. Kyoto is one of the cultural, educational, and technology centers of Japan. In it are many universities including Kyoto University, the second oldest national university of Japan.
After 794, the Japanese emperors lived in this city which was called Heian-kyō.
In 1868, the city was called "Saikyō" ("Western capital") in order to distinguish it from Edo (Tokyo) which was the "Eastern capital".
There are mountains around the city on the east, north, and west sides. Some people in Kyoto believe that these mountains make Kyoto's summer especially hot and humid, and Kyoto's winter very cold.