Timeline of Zagreb

The bishopric is founded. King Ladislaus of Hungary establishes a diocese on the hill that becomes Kaptol, and a cathedral is begun. This is the first documentary existence of Zagreb.

The Golden Bull. After sheltering from the Mongols on the neighbouring hill, King Béla IV grants Gradec the status of a free royal city — self-governing, exempt from feudal dues, and entitled to hold markets. Two towns now face each other across a stream.

The wars between the hills. The first recorded armed conflict between Gradec and Kaptol over mills and land. It recurs for three centuries, and the bridge over the Medveščak becomes known as Krvavi most — the Bloody Bridge.

Fortifying against the Ottomans. With the Ottoman advance into the Balkans, Kaptol builds walls and towers around the cathedral. Sections of the fortification survive in the precinct.

The peasant revolt. The rising led by Matija Gubec is crushed, and Gubec is executed on St Mark’s Square — crowned with a red-hot iron circlet in mockery of a peasant king.

The Jesuits arrive. A Jesuit gymnasium opens on Gradec, followed by an academy in 1669 with the rank of a university. It is the institutional ancestor of the University of Zagreb.

The ban moves in. Zagreb becomes the permanent seat of the ban, the viceroy of Croatia, and the effective capital of what the Ottoman wars have left of the country.

University rank. Emperor Leopold I grants the Jesuit academy the status and privileges of a university, making the institution one of the older ones in this part of Europe.

The fire and the painting. A fire destroys much of the wooden town around the eastern gate of Gradec. A painting of the Virgin hanging in the gateway survives untouched, and the Stone Gate has been a shrine ever since.

The capital arrives by accident. A fire in Varaždin, which had been the administrative seat of Croatia since 1767, sends the Royal Council to Zagreb. It never leaves.

Maksimir opens. Bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac opens his park to the public — the first public park in south-eastern Europe, and earlier than most of the great municipal parks of the west.

The Illyrian Provinces. Napoleon annexes the Croatian lands south of the Sava into the French Illyrian Provinces. The name and the idea outlive the occupation and give the national revival its label.

Gaj and the national revival. Ljudevit Gaj begins publishing in Zagreb and standardises the Croatian literary language and its orthography. The Illyrian movement builds a national cultural project in a city of ten thousand people under Hungarian administrative pressure.

One city at last. Gradec and Kaptol are formally amalgamated into a single city called Zagreb, more than seven hundred years after the first of them was founded and about six hundred after they started fighting.

The railway. The line from Zidani Most reaches Zagreb, connecting the city to Vienna and, from 1870, to Rijeka and the sea. The population begins to climb.

Strossmayer’s academy. Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer founds the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts and later gives his collection of old master paintings to the nation. The statue of Ban Jelačić is unveiled the same year, sabre pointing north.

The modern university. The University of Zagreb is reconstituted in its modern form, with faculties of law, theology and philosophy. Medicine follows in 1917.

The earthquake that built the city. On 9 November an earthquake of about magnitude 6.3 damages some 1,700 buildings in a town of 30,000. Zagreb does not merely repair — it rebuilds as a capital, and almost everything a visitor photographs today dates from the thirty years that follow.

Trams, and Bollé everywhere. A horse tramway opens, electrified in 1910. Hermann Bollé is at work across the city: the cathedral’s spires, the tiled roof of St Mark’s, and the arcades of Mirogoj.

The theatre, and a burnt flag. Franz Joseph opens the Croatian National Theatre by tapping in a silver nail. On the square outside, students led by Stjepan Radić publicly burn a Hungarian flag. Both events are remembered; only one is in the guidebooks.

The Green Horseshoe completes. Milan Lenuci’s U of eight linked squares and parks around the new lower town is essentially finished, with the Art Pavilion, the Botanical Garden and Zrinjevac all in place. It is one of the finest pieces of nineteenth-century planning in Europe.

A new kingdom, proclaimed here. The Croatian Sabor severs ties with Austria-Hungary, and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs is proclaimed in Zagreb before merging into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes within a month. The merger disappoints almost immediately.

Radić is shot. Stjepan Radić, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party and by then the most popular politician in Croatia, is shot on the floor of the Belgrade parliament and dies weeks later. His funeral in Zagreb draws an enormous crowd, and he is buried at Mirogoj.

The Ustaša state. Following the Axis invasion, the Independent State of Croatia is proclaimed with Zagreb as its capital. The regime’s camp system, centred on Jasenovac, murders Serbs, Jews and Roma on a very large scale. It is the darkest chapter in the city’s history and Croatia is still arguing about how to teach it.

Liberation, and a second Yugoslavia. Partisan forces enter Zagreb in May. The city becomes the capital of the Socialist Republic of Croatia within federal Yugoslavia.

Across the river. Construction begins on Novi Zagreb on the empty flood plain south of the Sava — a planned city of neighbourhood units that eventually houses around 120,000 people.

The flood. The Sava breaks its banks in October, killing at least seventeen people and displacing around 40,000. Flood defences are built and construction south of the river accelerates sharply.

The Croatian Spring. A reform movement centred on Zagreb’s universities and cultural institutions demands greater autonomy within Yugoslavia. It is suppressed, its leaders removed or imprisoned, and the following decade is known in Croatia as the silence.

The Universiade. Zagreb hosts the World Student Games, which leaves the city with the Jarun lake and rowing course and much of its sports infrastructure. It is the last great collective project of Yugoslav Zagreb.

Elections, and a riot at Maksimir. The first multi-party elections are held in April. On 13 May a Dinamo Zagreb match against Red Star Belgrade ends in a riot at Maksimir that is widely treated as one of the moments Yugoslavia visibly came apart.

Independence, and a bomb on St Mark’s Square. Croatia declares independence in June. On 7 October the Banski dvori on St Mark’s Square is bombed from the air with President Tuđman inside. He is unhurt; the following day Croatia formally severs its remaining ties with Yugoslavia.

Rockets into the city centre. On 2 and 3 May, Serb forces fire cluster rockets into central Zagreb, hitting shopping streets, the children’s hospital area and the theatre. Seven civilians are killed and around two hundred wounded. It is very little known outside Croatia.

The museum crosses the river. The Museum of Contemporary Art opens in Novi Zagreb — the largest museum building in Croatia, deliberately sited on the side of the city that had almost no cultural institutions.

An award for a broken heart. The Museum of Broken Relationships, founded by two Zagreb artists after their own break-up, wins the Kenneth Hudson Award for the most innovative museum in Europe.

The EU. Croatia becomes the twenty-eighth member state on 1 July. Emigration of working-age people to Ireland, Germany and Austria follows on a scale that is still reshaping the country’s demography.

Best in Europe. Advent in Zagreb is voted the best Christmas market in Europe, and again in 2017 and 2018. December becomes the city’s tourist peak, which is the opposite of the rest of Croatia.

Two earthquakes in one year. On 22 March, in the first week of lockdown, a magnitude 5.5 earthquake damages around 26,000 buildings and breaks the top off the cathedral’s south spire. On 29 December a magnitude 6.4 quake destroys Petrinja, killing seven, and shakes Zagreb again. The repairs are still under way.

Euro and Schengen, on the same day. On 1 January Croatia adopts the euro and joins the Schengen Area simultaneously. The kuna disappears, the Slovenian and Hungarian borders open, and the Serbian and Bosnian ones become an EU external frontier.