Cologne (Civ5)/Civilopedia

In 50 AD Rome founded the fortress-city of Colonia on the Rhine to protect the province of Germania Inferior. Prospering under the Romans, and later the Franks, the city became one of the most important trading and religious centers north of the Alps. In 785 it was made the seat of an archbishopric. As part of the Holy Roman Empire, the free city was home to one of the seven prince-electors and three ecclesiastical electors who chose the emperor. Along with one of the grandest cathedrals of the time, the city was also a major harbor and trading center on the Rhine, the site of the charterhouses of a number of influential, self-governing guilds. During the Reformation, the city remained steadfastly Catholic, despite the efforts of two archbishops who converted to Lutheranism. The faculty at the famous university, one of the oldest in Europe, publically burned Luther's works in 1520 AD. Cologne lost its status as a free city in 1798 when occupied by the new French Republic. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, it became part of Prussia, and then of Germany after the unification of that nation in 1871. Targeted by the Allies during the Second World War, Cologne endured 262 air raids, which destroyed 95% of the city. It was not until 1959 that Cologne would regain its pre-war population numbers and be fully rebuilt into a modern industrial metropolis.