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 Traces of human occupation of the
site of Vienna have been found dating as far back as the Paleolithic
period. The Illyrians and then the Celts subsequently inhabited the area.
In 16-15 BC the Romans, under the future emperor Tiberius, occupied the
foothills of the Alps, and in the next century the Celtic town of
Vindobona (Celtic: "White Field"; later to become Vienna) became
a strategic Roman garrison town. (The Roman camp is believed to have
covered the area around the present Hoher Market.) Vindobona grew to about
15,000 inhabitants and became part of a widespread network of trade and
communications. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is said to have died in Vindobona
in 180 AD fighting off attacks by the Germanic tribes. The Romans were
swept away in the turmoil of the 5th-century invasions, but enough of
Vindobona remained to serve as the nucleus of the medieval city. The
Bavarians occupied the area, and the people became Christianised. The
city's name was recorded in 881 as Wenia and in 1030 as Wienis.
The dukes of Babenberg, a Frankish dynasty, were overlords of Vienna from
1156 to 1246. The city developed into an important trading centre, where
crusaders on their way to the East bought provisions and equipment. In the
13th century, walls were built around the city, and Vienna remained
largely confined within the walled area until the 1700s. The Babenbergs
kept a brilliant court and encouraged artists like the famous minnesinger
Walther von der Vogelweide.
In 1246 the last male of the Babenberg family died. In the ensuing
struggle for domination, the king of Bohemia, Otakar II, became overlord
of what was to become Austria. Otakar established himself as a powerful
central European prince, and by 1276 he was at war with the German king,
Rudolf I of the Habsburg dynasty. When Otakar fell in battle in 1278, the
Habsburgs took over his domain and retained it for more than 600 years.
The capital city flourished, trading with Trieste, Venice, and Hungary;
nevertheless, economic decline attended the numerous disputes over
inheritance within the Habsburg family. In 1485, under siege by Matthias I
Corvinus of Hungary, the city fathers surrendered in the hope of bettering
their status. When Corvine died five years later, Vienna reverted to the
Habsburg emperor, Frederick III.
 During the Renaissance, Vienna
was a leader in science and fine arts, and the university (1365) was a
centre of humanism. When Charles V became Holy Roman emperor in the 16th
century he entrusted his Austrian territories to his brother, the future
emperor Ferdinand I. Seeking to increase their liberties and economic
position, the Lower Austrian Diet rebelled
against their regent. Ferdinand responded by condemning the leaders of the
insurrection to death, and in 1526 he issued an ordinance that stripped
the city of almost all its rights. In the same year, he inherited the
kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary and, accordingly, the task of fighting the
Turks, who commanded large parts of Hungary. Turkish forces besieged
Vienna in 1529 but were successfully beaten off. When Ferdinand was
crowned emperor in 1558, Vienna regained its political status and became
the administrative seat of numerous kingdoms that the Habsburgs acquired
by marriage.
The Reformation swept through Europe during the 16th century, arousing
heated opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. In an attempt to stem
the controversy, the imperial Diet, in the Peace of Augsburg (1555),
recognized the right of Lutheranism to exist but decreed that the regional
princes were to determine which form of Christianity their subjects must
follow. Because the Viennese were required to remain Roman Catholic, many
of the great number who had become Protestant had to leave the city. It
was during this period that new fortifications were built to replace the
medieval city walls and the Hofburg was enlarged with the addition of new
courts. The splendid secular buildings of the Baroque era proclaimed
Vienna's stature as an imperial residence and one of the great world
capitals.
In 1679 the bubonic plague struck the city, killing nearly a third of its
population. Then, during the summer of 1683, Vienna suffered a second
Turkish siege, this one led by the grand vizier Kara Mustafa. The Viennese
defenders, together with imperial troops under Charles of Lorraine, held
off the Turkish army, which was defeated with the help of relief forces
led by John III Sobieski, king of Poland. Shortly thereafter Prince Eugene
of Savoy succeeded in driving the Turks out of Hungary.
 With
the Turkish threat at an end, there followed an upsurge of building,
particularly in the devastated suburbs. Between 1700 and 1730 a city of
palaces and stately homes emerged. A second line of fortifications, the
Linienwall ("straight rampart"), was built in 1704-06 to give
the suburbs protection. In the densely built-up Innere Stadt old houses
either had upper stories added or were demolished and replaced by Baroque
structures. Hildebrandt, J.B. Fischer von Erlach, and Fischer von Erlach's
son Joseph Emanuel were the great Viennese architects of the time, and
their achievements are still evident in some of the city's best buildings.
During this period, immigrants arrived from other parts of the empire, and
new factories heralded the city's transition from trade to manufacturing.
The arts also received fresh energy, as instanced by Joseph Anton
Stranitzky's newly created Viennese Impromptu Theatre, which opened with
the character masque of Hanswurst.
The male line of the Habsburgs died out with Charles VI in 1740, but by
the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction his daughter
Maria Theresa gained the right of succession and reigned until 1780. She
established compulsory primary-school attendance; separated the university
from the church, bringing it under state control; and reorganized the
economy, the army, and the judiciary. Her son and successor, Joseph II,
was typical of the Enlightenment's absolute monarchs and continued in her
reforming spirit. His Edict of Toleration guaranteed religious freedom to
Protestants and Jews. He instituted many humanitarian measures, improved
government and education, and supported the arts. Some of his actions,
like the dissolution of the monasteries, brought him into conflict with
the church. By the time Joseph died in 1790, there were 300 factories in
Vienna, the population had increased to 235,000, and the built-up area had
increased 10-fold since the Turkish siege. Gluck, Haydn, and Mozart had
ushered in Vienna's first golden age of music; Beethoven and Schubert
would carry it into the next century.
In 1804 Francis II declared himself emperor of Austria and in 1806
resigned his former imperial crown, thus bringing to an end the Holy Roman
Empire, which had long been essentially a German monarchy. Napoleon's 
armies occupied Vienna in 1805 and again in 1809. Inflation and state
bankruptcy followed the Napoleonic Wars. Politically, however, Vienna held
a central position in the restoration of Europe at the Congress of Vienna
(1814-15) under the leadership of the powerful statesman Prince Metternich.
By 1845 Vienna had 430,000 inhabitants. The aspirations and cultural
interests of the middle class were growing, finding
artistic expression primarily in the simple and commonplace forms of the
Biedermeier style of decoration and furniture design. Joseph Lanner and
the elder Johann Strauss enlivened the city with Viennese waltzes. The
revolution of March 1848 in Vienna brought to an end Metternich's
authoritarian rule. The imperial army of Francis Joseph put down a second
uprising, in October. The city continued to grow culturally as the
Austrian (later the Austro-Hungarian) imperial capital.
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