Foundation in Roman times

When the Romans invaded England in the year 43, they were to cross the River Thames, and here they built a wooden bridge. It was close to today’s London Bridge, and the bridge quickly became the hub of traffic between the South and the North, and in that way London’s development began.

The city itself was established as Londinium about seven years after the Roman conquest, and after that the development went strong. Many buildings were erected during the early period of growth in the city, crowned by the fact that Londinium became the Roman administration seat of the 100th century in the province of Britannia; it replaced Colchester, which until then had that status.

At this time, the population was already around 60,000. Forum was set up at today’s Leadenhall Market, and the first temple at St. Paul’s was opened. The city was concentrated north of the Thames on the site where Monument was later erected. There were swimming facilities, temples, an amphitheater and other major public facilities.

Around the year 200, the Roman province of England was divided into two, and London became the capital of the most important part, while York became the capital of the second part. In doing so, the city’s enduring status as a leader had been emphasized.

In the 200s, Londinium was exposed to several attacks from the seaside, which led to the city’s defense being expanded. It happened with walls along the Thames where the threat came from. To that end, six of the city’s historic city gates were built; Aldersgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Ludgate and Newgate are the modern names for these gates.

 

Arrival of the Anglo-Saxons

Defense walls were built around Londinium, but Roman times in Britannia did not continue through the centuries. In the 400s, Roman power in the area ceased and Anglo-Saxon immigration started. Traces of an Anglo-Saxon cemetery have been found around Covent Garden, and it is believed to date back to the 500s and perhaps even 400s.

The Anglo-Saxon city was located a little west of the Roman city, and thus along The Strand between Aldwych and Trafalgar Square in the current town plan. The town was known as Lundenwic and over the years grew to over 10,000 inhabitants in the Anglo-Saxon era.

Around the year 600, the first Christian cathedral on St. Paul’s built, and the Pope’s emissary was to create an archdiocese seat. He chose Canterbury instead of London as a seat, but the city grew nonetheless; primarily due to the good location of the Thames, which meant increased trade and more new districts.

 

Attacks from Vikings and New Order

In 842 and 851 London was attacked by Danish Vikings, and in 865 they invaded England. In the winter of 871-872, the Vikings resided in London and retained dominion over the city until the year 886, when Alfred the Great of Essex’s troops conquered it.

The town was then placed under Mercia with Ealdorman Æthelred as leader. The city was then called Lundenburh, and the city was fortified with new defenses and re-established Roman walls. The city’s core was also moved east and behind the Roman walls again. Furthermore, a fortified bridgehead was established south of the Thames in the form of Southwark with the then name Suthringa Geworc. The old Lundenwic was called Ealdwic with reference to the old settlement, and from that comes the Aldwych of today.

Ethelred died in 911, after which Lundenburh became subject to Wessex and thereby the English kings. The city had already become the country’s most important commercial city in the 920s, and in 978 the king made London the capital.

However, the Danish Vikings still attacked London. The city resisted an attack under the Viking king Svend Tveskæg in 994, but the attacks continued despite the defeat. In 1013, the Vikings overcame the English resistance, and Svend Tvesk beard was crowned English King.

Svend Tvesk beard died shortly after, and the former English king was reinstated for a period until Svend Tvesk Beard’s son Knud again attacked and conquered Lundenburh and England. The Danish Vikings first gained dominion over London and England north of the Thames, and then Knud conquered the rest of the country. The Viking Knud was thus new king over both London and the rest of England.

After the first Danish Viking kings in England, Knud’s dynasty went extinct, and the throne then passed to Anglo-Saxon Edvard the Confessor. Under Edvard, Westminster Abbey was founded, and the King was primarily in precisely Westminster.

Edvard The acquaintance died in 1066, leaving no clear and formal successor. Jarl Harold Godwinson was elected king and crowned at Westminster Abbey, but he did not sit long on the throne. William of Normandy had claimed the throne as Edvard the Confessor’s successor, and he attacked England and won the throne and power of the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. William and the Normans went to London, and after the conquest of the English capital, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey as King William I.

 

London grows

London flourished vigorously in the following years; among other things through the rights the city got to the surrounding land, but much was also built as a Norman fortification of the city. The Tower of London to the east and Windsor Castle further to the west were erected in defense of the city; Tower was the first stone castle in England, which emphasized the importance of both the castle and London.

Administratively, after the French model of 1191, London was equipped with a civilian government led by a mayor. One of the initiatives was to prevent the frequent fires by building firewalls in stone.

London’s general political influence increased significantly in the 12th century, where it had previously been only a trading center. Westminster Palace was erected and with it the political power of the country was established.

Of other construction in the former Norman era was also the famous London Bridge. The plant was started in 1179 and the bridge could be commissioned in 1209. The bridge was important to the city and its trade, and it was the only bridge across the Thames until 1739.

During the 13th century, many monks came to the country, and they quickly built fortunes to erect many of the great church buildings one can see today. The number of churches followed a growing population. Around the year 1100, about 15,000 lived in London, and by the year 1300 the number had grown to about 80,000.

 

Global London

London’s rising international role also started part of the city’s development. The industries of the city and the busy port were important parts of the rapidly growing production and trade that characterized the English capital.

With the start of Tudor’s house as regent with Henry VII in 1485, London again saw a building boom, and in particular many mansions and palaces were built.

Among other things, the 16th century of the Tudor period was marked by the Protestant Reformation, and London was the center of the English Protestants. The new religious currents came from the European continent to London through the city’s many international connections. In London, the Protestant ideas could spread through the city’s media and intellectual class.

King Henry VIII started the dissolution of the Catholic orders and monasteries in England in 1536, and it became of great importance to London. Of course, the church was reformed religiously, but as the Catholic churches and ordinances owned large parts of the city, the town’s property conditions also changed. Many of the church’s mansions were taken over by various wealthy noble families.

The 16th century was also a century in which London and England seriously developed a trade with large parts of the world. Russia, America and India were important trading places for the English, and trading companies such as Muscovy Compnay and the British East India Company gained considerable power in the growing empire.

At the same time as trade developments, London’s population continued to rise dramatically. There were about 50,000 living in London in the 1530s, and at the beginning of the 1600s there were approximately 225,000 citizens in the city.

 

1666

London had been considerably expanded, and through the 17th century the city grew seriously beyond the old city limits. Among the new inhabitants were, for example, some aristocrats and the English country nobility who built residences for residence in London, where they enjoyed the social life of the city.

During the 17th century, however, London was also hit by several major accidents. The sanitary conditions gave rise to the spread of disease, and several outbreaks of plague ravaged the capital. Outbreaks in 1665 and 1666 are believed to have killed 60,000 people or about a fifth of the city’s inhabitants.

London was gradually a very large city with dense settlement, and in 1666 another accident struck London; the city’s big fire, which laid many neighborhoods in the old London desert.

On Sunday, September 2, 1666, a fire started at 1 a.m. in a bakery in the street of Pudding Lane. There was easterly wind, and it quickly caught the flames, which spread to several buildings, many streets and entire neighborhoods. The fire was first extinguished on Thursday, and the many days of fire had left its mark in the cityscape.

About 60% of the City had been destroyed by the fire, and among other things, it had damaged no fewer than 87 parish churches, the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, the city’s stock exchange and a host of other buildings.

After the fire, London was to be rebuilt, and just days after the fire, the King was presented with three different proposals for new town plans by Christopher Wren, John Evelyn and Robert Hooke respectively. The plans offered rectilinear streets and large spaces according to European models of the time. Instead of these, London was developed from the street network from before the ravages of the fire.

 

The Great Reconstruction

After the fire in 1666, the rebuilding of the English capital began. Only wood was used for doors, windows and storefronts; otherwise the new buildings should be of stone to protect against any future fires.

Christopher Wren’s proposed new town plan was not realized, but Wren was spearheaded for the rebuilding of countless burned-out and destroyed churches as well as for the construction of a new St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wrens St. Paul’s stands as one of London’s major sights, just as many of his churches are beautiful contemporary architectural gems.

Other large plants also saw the light of day in the latter half of the 1600s. The royal power, several nobles and wealthy men erected new residences; eg King William III’s establishment of Kensington Palace as a large residence following the acquisition of the property in 1691.

 

18th Century London

Throughout the following century, the rapid development of London continued. The city gained further political power in 1707, with the parliaments of England and Scotland assembled under a British parliament in the unified country of the United Kingdom.

Later in the 18th century, the Seven Years’ War broke out between some of Europe’s leading powers. The war was fought in 1756-1763, and one of the most important achievements for Britain was the French defeat, which ended France’s political dominance in Europe and much of North America. It gave way to Britain, which at that time strengthened its position in India and North America, among others, and it benefited the London commercial houses greatly.

In the mid-18th century, London was expanded with several new districts, giving new space to the city’s continued growth. A few decades later, George III purchased the mansion Buckingham House by the Duke of Buckingham; it was in 1762, and over the next several years British regents expanded the mansion into a new magnificent residence castle.

New industries also came to town, and in the 1700s Fleet Street was developed as the home of the press, and from this a number of newspapers were published over time. The trade in the city was given infrastructurally better opportunities when it was decided to establish a new bridge across the Thames. It happened with the opening of the Westminster Bridge in 1750 and before that all traffic had passed over the London Bridge.

 

19th Century boom

London’s population numbered around a million around 1800, making the English capital the world’s largest city. The city was thriving, and the wealth of the wealthy increased, while there was still marked slum and poverty for others. Part of the city’s life was described by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist, while the trade prospered, and London’s political leadership role in the world merely expanded.

The area of ​​the city was significantly expanded and the population increased to 2.7 million in 1851, with the industrial revolution further developing London and England very rapidly. The railroad was a reason for the rapid growth. With it, train connections were made to suburbs where the middle class could live while working in central London.

The first London railroad was opened in 1836 and it connected the London Bridge with Greenwich. In the following decades, large terminus stations opened in many parts of the city, and in 1863 the world’s first subway was opened in London.

London, England and the United Kingdom were at their international highs in the mid-1800s. The splendor and empire were displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851; the exhibition was held in the famous Crystal Palace.

London’s population grew throughout the century, and from 1 million inhabitants in 1800, 6.7 million lived at the turn of the 20th century.

 

London and the World Wars

At the end of the 19th century, London gained more economic and political competition among the world’s major cities, with not least Paris and New York beginning to make London the rank of battle as the center of much of the world’s economy and politics.

However, London continued its development into the new century. The infrastructure was expanded with subway extensions, and a tram network was also built in the city streets.

The 1900s started with a large British empire ruled from London, but independence requests from countries and the impending world wars changed that status by bite. During World War I, London was attacked and bombed by German zeppelin bombers, and several attacks destroyed buildings in the city.

After being hit by the international economic crisis in the 1930s came World War II, which went hard over London. Many children had been evacuated to rural areas in England, and the remaining population lived with shelters and fears of the many German bombings that repeatedly struck, especially between September 1940 and May 1941. V1 and V2 rockets were used as bombs from 1944 , and a total of about 30,000 were killed during the attacks. Many buildings were also crushed and large parts of London had to be rebuilt after the end of the war in 1945.

 

1945 to present day London

A great reconstruction work was started from 1945, but it took many years before the war’s years were healed. Meanwhile, however, there was also time for other and more joyous events such as the Olympic Games held in London in 1948. Three years later, The Festival and Britain were conducted, and the activities gave new optimism and faith in the future.

There was a shortage of housing in post-war London, and through the 1950s and 1960s many concrete blocks of flats were erected around London, giving the city a new character. New neighborhoods and suburbs also emerged during this time. The decades were also a period of great immigration to London from many former colonies and parts of the British Empire, and they clearly changed the city’s population composition.

From the 1960s, London became a cultural stronghold where flows can surface and on to the whole world. Youth culture and Swinging London brought global interest and influence, and it continued with new wave, punk and later britpop music, among others.

Many of the formerly so large and significant industrial areas decayed in the latter half of the 20th century, but from the end of the century a development of the city occurred, and in many places the old ports and industrial buildings were brought to life through new residential, office and cultural projects. They apply, for example, to Docklands, which is an asset in an old port district, and old power plants such as Battersea Power Station.

New architecture was also instrumental in putting London on the 21st century world map. The London Eye Ferris Wheel in the Thames has become one of the city’s landmarks, and renowned architects have supplemented the city’s skyline with exciting skyscrapers such as The Shard. London hosts many global events, but few are on par with the Olympic Games, which once again came to London in 2012.