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The History of Budapest

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Budapest Timeline

35BC

Romans conquer region, calling it Aquincum

AD 896

Magyars conquer country, settling in capital

AD 1222

The Golden Bull signed (Hungary’s Magna Carta) during the reign of King Andras

AD 1396

An attack against the Turks, lead by King Sigismund, backfires, leading to a half century of occupation

AD 1458

King Matyas is crowned, leading to the development of Buda Castle

AD 1541

The Peasant Revolt arises, ending in defeat at the hands of nobility. Turks begin occupation

AD 1686

Turks driven out following 6 week siege

AD 1838

Major flooding of the Danube Basin. Work starts on the major boulevards

AD 1842

Work commences on the Chain Bridge

AD 1873

Buda, Obuda and Pest unite to form Budapest

AD 1896

Construction of the Budapest Underground, Heroes Square and City Park

AD 1920

Signing of the post-WWI Treaty of Trianon, resulting in Hungary losing two-thirds of its territory

AD 1945

After much of the city is destroyed, and two hundred thousand of its residents killed, German forces surrender to the Soviets by the Royal Palace

AD 1956

The People’s Uprising. Budapest citizens and the Hungarian army fail to overthrow Soviet rule

AD 1989

Hungary’s ruling Communist Party swept aside as democracy floods Eastern Europe

AD 2002

Andrassy Avenue, Millennium Underground Railway and Heroes Square are included in the World Heritage Sites

AD 2004

Hungary joins the EU

History of Budapest

Budapest’s jaw-droppingly tumultuous past is littered with oppression, expansion and obliteration, a pattern of weak Kings, long occupation and ill-timed in-fighting helping to negate the huge forward strides made under leaders like Bela IV, Matyas or Maria Theresa.

Hungary’s grand old warrior has long since emerged from a string of abusive jailers with a defiant roar and a glint of steel, though, when you can list prolonged kickings from the Romans, Huns, Mongols, Soviets and Turks on your CV... unable to embrace democracy until the last year of the 1980s... you perhaps learn not to take anything for granted. Indeed, a brief glimpse at the peaks and troughs of Budapest – or Aquincum as it was under Roman rule – over the previous 2,000 years makes it easy to understand why most inhabitants of this visually stunning, multi-layered stag playground prefer to live it one day (or weekend) at a time.

Useful Facts:

Country: Hungary

Language: Hungarian

Currency: Forint

Time Difference: GMT +1

Population: 1.7 million

Modern-day residents of “The Pearl of the Danube” tend to trace their roots back to those wandering Magyars, who, along with several thousand knackered horses, settled here in the late 9th century. This was over 300 years before the signing of Hungary’s version of the Magna Carta (“The Golden Bull”) and nearly 1,000 years before the city earned the name by which we now all know it, yet still the period of Magyar rule is looked back on more favourably than those of, say, Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, who between them managed to blow much of the city to pieces whilst also culling the populace.

It is widely believed that these two millenniums spent swapping one nasty set of landlords for another increased the fortitude and independence of Budapest’s character, leading inevitably to the watershed of 1956 when the people’s revolution began – an uprising that mutated and evolved over three decades, eventually bringing down the hammer and sickle once and for all in 1989.

The former bitch of Attila the Hun, Nero, Stalin and Hitler now boasts colossal tourism, breathtakingly restored architecture and a prolific wine industry amongst its many qualities, each built on the back of a towering national spirit and identity that will surely refuse to let history repeat itself.

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