History of Paris

The oldest traces of human occupation in Paris, discovered near rue Henri-Farman in the 15th arrondissement in 2008, are human bones and evidence of an encampment of hunter-gatherers dating from about 8000 b.c., during the Mesolithic period. Between 250 and 225 BC, the Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, settled on the Île de la Cité and on the banks of the Seine, built bridges and a fort, minted coins, and began to trade with other river settlements in Europe.

In 52 BC, a Roman army led by Titus Labienus defeated the Parisii, and established a Gallo-Roman garrison town called Lutetia. The town was Christianised in the 3rd century AD, and after the collapse of the Roman Empire was occupied by Clovis I, the King of the Franks, who made it his capital in 508.

During the Middle Ages, Paris was the largest city in Europe, an important religious and commercial centre, and the birthplace of the Gothic style of architecture. The University of Paris on the Left Bank, organised in the mid-13th century, was one of the first in Europe. It suffered from the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century, and the Hundred Years War in the 15th century, with recurrence of the plague. Between 1418 and 1436, the city was occupied by the Burgundians and English soldiers. In the 16th century, Paris became the book-publishing capital of Europe, though it was shaken by the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants. In the 18th century, it was the centre of the intellectual ferment called the Enlightenment, and the main stage of the French Revolution from 1789 which is remembered every year on the 14th of July with a military parade.

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