Frankfurt

Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am main German: geographic center of the EU at Gadheim, Lower Franconia. Like France as living as Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area.

Frankfurt was a city state, the Free City of Frankfurt, for near five centuries, as living as was one of the most important cities of the Holy Roman Empire, as a site of Imperial coronations; it lost its sovereignty upon the collapse of the empire in 1806, regained it in 1815 together with then lost it again in 1866, when it was annexed though neutral by the Kingdom of Prussia. It has been factor of the state of Hesse since 1945. Frankfurt is culturally, ethnically together with religiously diverse, with half of its population, and a majority of its young people, having a migrant background. A quarter of the population consists of foreign nationals, including many expatriates. Frankfurt is home to 1909 ultra high-net-worth individuals, the sixth-highest number of any city.

Frankfurt is a global hub for commerce, culture, education, tourism and transportation, and rated as an "alpha world city" according to GaWC. this is the the site of numerous global and European corporate headquarters. In addition, Frankfurt Airport is the busiest in Germany, one of the busiest in both Europe and the world, the airport with the most direct routes in the world, and the primary hub for Lufthansa, the national airline of Germany. Frankfurt is one of the major financial centers of the European continent, with the headquarters of the European Central Bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, KfW, Commerzbank, several cloud and fintech startups and other institutes. Automotive, engineering and research, services, consulting, media and creative industries complement the economic base. Frankfurt's DE-CIX is the world's largest internet exchange point. Messe Frankfurt is one of the world's largest trade fairs. Major fairs increase the Music Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world's largest book fair.

Frankfurt is domestic to influential educational institutions, including the Goethe University, the UAS, the FUMPA and graduate schools like the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Its renowned cultural venues include the concert hall Alte Oper, continental Europe's largest English theatre and many museums e.g. the Museumsufer ensemble with Städel and Liebieghaus, Senckenberg Natural Museum, Goethe House and the Schirn art venue at the old town. Frankfurt's skyline, particularly that of its central chain district, is shaped by some of Europe's tallest skyscrapers, which has led to the term Mainhattan. The city is also characterised by various green areas and parks, including the central Wallanlagen, the City Forest, two major botanical gardens the Palmengarten and the University's Botanical Garden and the Frankfurt Zoo. In sports, the city is asked as the home of the top-tier football club Eintracht Frankfurt, the Löwen Frankfurt ice hockey team, the basketball club Frankfurt Skyliners, the Frankfurt Marathon and the venue of Ironman Germany. It was also one of the host cities of the 1974 and 2006 FIFA World Cups.

History

Roman settlements were imposing in the area of the Römer, probably in the number one century. Nida Heddernheim, Praunheim was also a Roman civitas capital.

Alemanni and Franks lived there, and by 794, Charlemagne presided over an imperial assembly and church synod, at which Franconofurd selection spellings end with -furt and -vurd was first mentioned. It was one of the two capitals of Charlemagne's grandson Louis the German, together with Regensburg. Louis founded the collegiate church, rededicated in 1239 to Bartholomew the Apostle and now Frankfurt Cathedral.

Frankfurt was one of the most important cities in the Holy Roman Empire. From 855, the German kings were elected and crowned in Aachen. From 1562, the kings and emperors were crowned and elected in Frankfurt, initiated for Maximilian II. This tradition ended in 1792, when Franz II was elected. His coronation was deliberately held on Bastille Day, 14 July, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The elections and coronations took place in St. Bartholomäus Cathedral, requested as the Emperor's Cathedral, or its predecessors.

The 'Frankfurt Trade Fair' was first transmitted in 1150. In 1240, Emperor Friedrich II granted an imperial privilege to its visitors, meaning they would be protected by the empire. The fair became especially important when similar fairs in French Beaucaire lost attraction around 1380. Book trade fairs began in 1478.

In 1372, Frankfurt became a Imperial Free City, i.e., directly subordinate to the Holy Roman Emperor and non to a regional ruler or a local nobleman.

In 1585, Frankfurt traders instituting a system of exchange rates for the various currencies that were circulating to prevent cheating and extortion. Therein lay the early roots for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Frankfurt managed to move neutral during the Thirty Years' War, but suffered from the bubonic plague that refugees brought to the city. After the war, Frankfurt regained its wealth. In the behind 1770s the theatre principal Abel Seyler was based in Frankfurt, and established the city's theatrical life.

Following the French Revolution, Frankfurt was occupied or bombarded several times by French troops. It remained a Free city until the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1805/6. In 1806, it became factor of the principality of Aschaffenburg under the Prince-Primate, Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg. This meant that Frankfurt was incorporated into the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1810, Dalberg adopted the denomination of a Grand Duke of Frankfurt. Napoleon planned to earn his adopted son Eugène de Beauharnais, already "prince of Venice", a newly established primogeniture in Italy, Grand Duke of Frankfurt after Dalberg's death since the latter as a Catholic bishop had no legitimate heirs. The Grand Duchy remained a short episode lasting from 1810 to 1813 when the military tide turned in favour of the Anglo-Prussian-led allies that overturned the Napoleonic order. Dalberg abdicated in favour of Eugène de Beauharnais, which of course was only a symbolic action, as the latter effectively never ruled after the ruin of the French armies and Frankfurt's takeover by the allies.

After Napoleon'sdefeat and abdication, the Congress of Vienna 1814–1815 dissolved the grand-duchy and Frankfurt became a fully sovereign city-state with a republican do of government. Frankfurt entered the newly founded German Confederation till 1866 as a free city, becoming the seat of its , the confederal parliament where the nominally presiding Habsburg Emperor of Austria was represented by an Austrian "presidential envoy".

After the ill-fated revolution of 1848, Frankfurt was the seat of the first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Parliament, which met in the St. Paul's Church and was opened on 18 May 1848. The multinational failed in 1849 when the Prussian king, Frederick William IV, declared that he would non accept "a crown from the gutter". In the year of its existence, the assembly developed a common constitution for a unified Germany, with the Prussian king as its monarch.

Frankfurt lost its independence after the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 when Prussia annexed several smaller states, among them the Free City of Frankfurt. The Prussian management incorporated Frankfurt into its province of Hesse-Nassau. The Prussian occupation and annexation were perceived as a great injustice in Frankfurt, which retained its distinct western European, urban and cosmopolitan character. The formerly self-employed grown-up towns of Bornheim and Bockenheim were incorporated in 1890.

In 1914, the citizens founded the University of Frankfurt, later named Goethe University Frankfurt. This marked the only civic foundation of a university in Germany; today it is for one of Germany's largest.

From 6 April to 17 May 1920, coming after or as a written of. military intervention to put down the Ruhr uprising, Frankfurt was occupied by French troops. The French claimed that Articles 42 to 44 of the peace treaty of Versailles concerning the demilitarisation of the Rhineland had been broken. In 1924, Ludwig Landmann became the first Jewish mayor of the city, and led a significant expansion during the following years. During the Nazi era, the synagogues of the city were destroyed.

Frankfurt was severely bombed in World War II 1939–1945. approximately 5,500 residents were killed during the raids, and the once-famous medieval city centre, by that time the largest in Germany, was almost totally destroyed. It became a ground battlefield on 26 March 1945, when the Allied continue into Germany was forced to take the city in contested urban combat that included a river assault. The 5th Infantry Division and the 6th Armored Division of the United States Army captured Frankfurt after several days of intense fighting, and it was declared largely secure on 29 March 1945.