Nördlingen
Nördlingen () is a town in the Donau-Ries district, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, with a population of approximately 19,190. It is located approximately east of Stuttgart, and northwest of Munich. It was built in a 15 million year old and 25 km diameter wide impact crater—the Nördlinger Ries—of a meteorite which hit with an estimated speed of 70,000 km/h, and left the area riddled with an estimated 72,000 tons of micro-diamonds. Nördlingen was first mentioned in recorded history in 898, and in 1998 the town celebrated its 1100th anniversary. The town was the location of  two battles during the Thirty Years' War, which took place between 1618 and 1648. Today it is one of only three towns in Germany that still have completely intact city walls, the other two being Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl. Another attraction in the town is Saint George's Church's steeple, called "Daniel", which is made of a suevite impact breccia that contains shocked quartz. Other notable buildings are the town hall (which dates to the 13th century), St. Salvator church and the "Spital", a former medieval hospital. The Ries crater museum is located in the well-preserved  medieval tanners' quarter. The city is home to several other museums, such as the Bavarian Railway Museum, the Nördlingen city museum ("Stadtmuseum"), the city wall museum ("Stadtmauermuseum") and "Augenblick" museum. The latter has panoramas, magic lanterns, silent films, barrel organs, pianolas, music boxes and gramophones. Nördlingen is also known for the "Scharlachrennen" (Scarlet Race), a horse race tournament that was first mentioned in 1463. Since World War II, it has expanded to include eventing, jumping and dressage. The American film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) shows a view of Nördlingen in the final aerial scene. The fictional town  Shiganshina, from the widely acclaimed manga and anime franchise "Attack on Titan", is believed to be inspired by this city. However, this is unlikely to be the case, given that similar cities also bear resemblances to "Shiganshina". History. Prehistory and Celtic period. Finds in the Ofnet Caves near the city show that the site of present-day Nördlingen was already inhabited in the late Palaeolithic. In the Large Ofnet, in 1908 archaeologist R. R. Schmidt found two dish-shaped pits in which human skulls were lying "like eggs in flat baskets". In the larger pit were 27 skulls and in  the other there were 6 skulls. The skulls were arranged concentrically with their faces turned towards the setting sun. They were all covered with a thick layer of red ochre. The skulls have been dated to the 7th millennium BC. In the area around Nördlingen, additional sites dating to almost all of the subsequent prehistoric epochs have been discovered. Particularly important was an area on the eastern edge of the district Baldingen, where settlements have been found belonging to the Neolithic Linear Pottery culture, the Bronze Age Urnfield culture, and the Celtic Iron Age Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. Roman  Empire. The area which includes present-day Nördlingen was part of the Roman province of Raetia, but little research has been conducted on the city's Roman period. A Roman villa has been excavated in the district of Holheim, and can be visited today. Another villa with an adjoining burial ground has been identified in the Baldingen district. A settlement ("vicus"), built in 85 C.E., occupied the southern part of the city until 259–260 C.E., when it was destroyed during the conquest of what is now southern Germany by the Germanic-speaking Alemanni tribes. The Roman settlement may have been  the one known as Septemiacum, which is supposed to have been built between 80-300 C.E., although it is possible that this particular settlement was actually located at a different site such as Oberdorf, leaving the name of the settlement at Nördlingen uncertain. Middle Ages. The Alemannic people occupied the Nördlingen area during the 6th and 7th centuries C.E., during which time the region was gradually Christianized under the Merovingian dynasty, and several burial grounds from this period have been discovered. The name "Nordilinga" is first found in documents of the Carolingian royal court dating from 898 C.E., and the  city today celebrates this as the date of its "foundation". Under the rule of the Bishops of Regensburg, Nördlingen grew into an important market town. In 1215, Nördlingen was granted city rights by Emperor Frederick II and became imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. In that year, the first city wall was built, whose floor plan is still visible today. In a document dating to 1219, the "Nördlinger Pfingstmesse" ("Nördlinger fair") was first mentioned, an event which continues as a folk festival in the city to the present day. Thanks to Nördlingen's location at the crossroads of two  major trade routes (Frankfurt / Würzburg-Augsburg and Nuremberg-Ulm), became an important trading center for grain, livestock, textiles, furs, and metal goods. Besides Frankfurt am Main, Nördlingen was one of the most important long-distance trade fairs in the region. In 1238, a fire destroyed much of Nördlingen, but the city quickly recovered. Three generations later, a large number of craftsmen, especially tanners and weavers, settled outside the city walls. In 1327 the present-day circular wall was built, which increased the size of the walled portion of the city fourfold. 1427 saw the start of construction on St. George 's Church. In the year 1472 the lawsuit against the brothel owners Linhardt Freiermuth and his wife Barbara Taschenfeind are recorded in the court records of the city. The starting point of the trial was the charge of forced abortion on the prostitute Els von Eystett. The court convicted the owners and banished the husband from the city. His wife was branded on the forehead and pilloried. The 40 parchment pages in the city archive of Nördlingen for this trial give a unique insight into the conditions of a brothel in this time period. Early modern period. In 1529, the  city was part of the Protestation at Speyer, which sought to allow the unimpeded spread of the Protestant Reformation. In 1555, the Reformation in Nördlingen was finally completed. In 1579, Mayor Peter Seng (1512–1589) signed the Lutheran Formula of Concord. The witch trials in the early modern period in Nördlingen have been well documented. Between 1589 and 1598, 34 women and one man were burned at the stake for the crime of witchcraft, and one co-defendant midwife, Barbara Lierheimer, died while in custody. The trials of Maria Holl and Rebecca Lemp became especially well-known. In 1589, Pastor Wilhelm  Friedrich Lutz delivered sermons against the radical witch persecution of Nördlingen City Council, prior to the Council's execution of the first alleged witches in May 1590. One of the three women executed in that year was a carter's daughter, Ursula Haider, who was arrested on 8 November 1589 and burned on 15 May 1590. The trial of Ursula Haider was by described by Ulrike Haß in her book "Teufelstanz". It is often said that in 1604 a shortened and simplified version of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was performed in Nördlingen and that this was one of  the first performances of any Shakespearean play outside England. In fact, the players applied to perform but were denied by the local authorities and were compensated for their efforts. Nördlingen served as the site of two historic battles, and marked a turning point in the Thirty Years' War. In the first Battle of Nördlingen in 1634, the Swedish Protestant forces were decisively defeated for the first time by the imperial Habsburg troops. The city was compelled to open its gates to the victors, but was not plundered by the victorious troops after high reparations payments. However, during and after the  siege, the city lost more than half of its population due to hunger and illness. This was exacerbated by the second Battle of Nördlingen in 1645, and it would not be until 1939 that Nördlingen regained the population it had in 1618. In the early 18th century, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the city was further affected by the impact of nearby battles of Höchstädt. The wars forced trade to shift to the seaports, and as a result, Nördlingen lost its importance as a trading center. In part due to this forced economic standstill, Nördlingen's medieval cityscape  remained well preserved. As a result of the German mediatization, in 1803 Nördlingen lost its status as an imperial city and became part of the Electorate of Bavaria, which had occupied the city in September 1802 in anticipation of the decree. On January 1, 1806, Bavaria's Elector declared himself king, officially changing the Electorate of Bavaria into the Kingdom of Bavaria, which seceded from the Holy Roman Empire the following August. Modern period. On May 15, 1849, Nördlingen was connected to the network of the Royal Bavarian State Railways. In that same year, the first rail lines opened to  Nuremberg. A third railway connection, under the leadership of the Royal Württemberg State Railways, was opened on 3 October 1863 to Aalen. During the Second World War, a total of 33 people were killed in and around Nördlingen by air raids conducted in the spring of 1945. The train station and several houses were destroyed, and St. George's Church was severely damaged. However, most of the historic district of the city was spared. In 1945, Nördlingen became part of the American occupation zone of Allied-occupied Germany. The United States military set up a displaced persons camp in the  city. It was overseen by UNRRA and housed approximately 500 DPs, mostly from Latvia and Lithuania. More than 4,500 people settled permanently in Nördlingen after the war. Since the Middle Ages, Jewish families have resided in Nördlingen. They buried their dead in the Jewish cemetery on Nähermemminger Way, and a synagogue was built in 1885. The synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis during the November pogrom of 1938, and this is commemorated by a plaque on today's Protestant parish hall. In 1979, a memorial stone was erected in the Jewish cemetery commemorating Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In the  course of the municipal reorganization of Bavaria, Nördlingen lost its status as a city on July 1, 1972 and was incorporated into the newly formed district Nördlingen-Donauwörth, which received its current name, Donau-Ries, on May 1, 1973. Economy. Important companies in Nördlingen are: Nördlingen has a station on the Ries Railway, which is served hourly on weekdays. Sport. The local sports club, the TSV 1861 Nördlingen, has a very successful basketball department with the men's and the women's team both in the Basketball Bundesliga. The clubs football team is traditionally the strongest side in northern Swabia . Its most successful former player is Gerd Müller, who was born and raised in Nördlingen. Its stadium was renamed in his honour in 2008. Impact diamonds. Stone buildings in the town contain millions of tiny diamonds, all less than across. The meteorite impact — from a asteroid — that caused the Nördlinger Ries crater created an estimated 72,000 tons of these tiny diamonds when it impacted a local graphite deposit. Stone from this area was later quarried and used to build the stone buildings. In movies. Aerial scenes at the end of "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" were filmed here. Fans of  the anime and manga series "Attack on Titan" have come to believe the layout of one of the main locations Shiganshina District was based on this city. This belief started as an internet dawn theory but was popularized when variety show "Sekai fushigi hakken" (discovery of world mysteries) visited Nördlingen during a November 2013 segment on southern Germany. The actress in the segment made comments relating "Attack on Titan" to the location and clips from the anime were played during the segment as well. The producers of Sekai fushigi hakken later stated on twitter that there was no actual connection  between the anime and Nördlingen. However, this segment still led many fans in Japan to believe Nördlingen was an inspiration for the aesthetic and architecture depicted in the popular anime. This theory has since spread to the broader global fan base. It has resulted in a significant number of Attack on Titans fans from various parts of the world visiting Nördlingen over the past several years. Twin towns – sister cities. Nördlingen is twinned with: