Bratislava (Civ5)/Civilopedia

The economic and cultural center of Slovakia, Bratislava is home to several renowned universities, museums, theaters, art galleries and other Slavic cultural institutions. Lying at the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers, the first known settlement on the site of the city was in the Neolithic Era around 5000 BC. Later inhabited and fortified by the Celts, the area fell under Roman control in the 1st Century AD. Besides the amenities of Roman civilization - roads, theaters, public baths, libraries and the like - they introduced grapevines to the area around the fortress, and began a tradition of fine winemaking that has survived.
Renamed Pressburg, the strategic city became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 10th Century; there the first Slavic university, the Academia Istropolitana, was founded in 1467. Under the Hapsburgs, it was home to archbishops, nobility, merchants, artisans, and kings. Bratislava flourished in the 1700s, especially during the reign of Maria Theresa, who made it the largest and most important town in the region. The city figured prominently in the classical movement of the period: Wolfgang Mozart gave a concert in 1762; Joseph Haydn performed in 1784; Beethoven was a guest while composing in 1796; Liszt and Bartok lived there for short periods. The world's first technical university opened as the Banska Akademia in 1762. Meanwhile, initiatives were launched to promote and preserve the Slavic language and literature in new libraries; the first Slovak language newspaper, the Presspurske Nowiny, began publishing in 1783.
Following the First World War and dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Bratislava was made the capital of Slovakia in the first Czechoslovakian Republic, and remained the capital when Slovakia emerged as an independent nation following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1993. Bratislava has since been declared "the soul, if not the heart, of Slavic culture."