Prehistory The oldest known remnants of settlement in the Maribor area date back to the 5th millennium BC, at the time of the
Chalcolithic. With the construction of Maribor's western bypass, larger settlements were discovered dating from the 44th to 42nd century BC. Another settlement from around the same period was also discovered in
Spodnje Hoče, a town right next to Maribor and another below Melje Hill near
Malečnik. Another settlement below Melje Hill was also found dating to the 4th millennium BC. A more intense period of settlement of the Maribor area occurred in the 3rd millennium BC with the advent of the
Bronze Age. In the 13th to 12th century BC, in the age of the
Urnfield culture, new settlements were found in
Pekel. Around 1000 BC, new settlers moved to the Maribor area. An urnfield cemetery was found from that period in today's
Mladinska ulica and another
necropolis was also found in
Pobrežje.
Medieval history , 1678. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Maribor area was settled by the
Slavs. A Slavic cemetery was found in Radvanje dating to the 10th century AD. In the Frankish Empire, the area again stood on the border, this time between the Frankish Empire and the
Principality of Hungary. To protect the Frankish Empire from Hungarian raids, a castle was built on
Pyramid Hill. The castle was mentioned for the first time on 20 October 1164 as
Castrum Marchburch. A settlement soon began to grow below the castle. Maribor was first mentioned as a market near the castle in 1204, and it received
town privileges in 1254. . A copper engraving by
Georg Matthäus Vischer. The town began to grow rapidly after the victory of
Rudolf I of the
Habsburg dynasty over King
Otakar II of
Bohemia in 1278. The town built fortifications, and trade, viticulture, and crafts started to grow. The town had a monopoly over the entire region and also controlled the viticulture trade with
Carinthia. The first churches were built, and also around this time the first
Jews arrived. The Jews built their own ghetto in the southeastern part of town, where they also built the
Maribor Synagogue. Most Slovenians lived in the northwestern part of town on what is now Slovenian Street (
Slovenska ulica). In 1478, a second castle was built on the northeastern side of the town, today known as
Maribor Castle. In 1480 and in 1481,
Matthias Corvinus besieged the town but failed to conquer it on both occasions. In 1515, the
Maribor Town Hall was built and a few years later, in 1532, Maribor again came under siege, this time by the
Ottoman Empire. In the battle that became known as the
Siege of Maribor, a 100,000-strong Ottoman army under the leadership of
Suleiman the Magnificent attacked the town, which was defended only by the local garrison and its citizens. Despite all the odds, Maribor was defended and the legend of the Maribor shoemaker who raised the sluice gates and flooded the Ottoman army is still popular today.
Modern period In the 17th century, numerous fires razed the town. The biggest ones occurred in 1601, 1645, 1648, and 1700. As a consequence, the town was rebuilt numerous times. In addition to fires, the plague decimated the town's population. The largest plague epidemics occurred in 1646, 1664, and 1680. Due to the plague, the town lost 35 percent of its population. In gratitude for the end of the plague, a
plague column was built in 1681, with the original being replaced in 1743. In 1846, the
Southern Railway was built through the town, which resulted in great economic growth and territorial expansion. In 1859,
Anton Martin Slomšek, a bishop of the
Diocese of Lavant, transferred the seat of the diocese to Maribor, and he further encouraged the use of Slovene. With the transfer, Maribor also received its first higher school. Four years later, Maribor was connected with Carinthia with the construction of the railway from Maribor to
Prevalje. On 4 April 1883, the first electric light in Slovene ethnic territory was installed on Castle Square (
Grajski trg). The renowned electrical engineer
Nikola Tesla lived in Maribor from 1878 to 1879, where he received his first job.
Maribor National Hall was built in 1899, and it became a political, cultural, and economic centre for all Styrian Slovenes. most of the city's capital and public life was in Austrian German hands. However, the county excluding the city had only 10,199 Austrian Germans and 78,888 Slovene inhabitants, meaning the city was completely surrounded by majority-Slovene ethnic territory. In
World War I, the
47th Infantry Regiment of the
Austro-Hungarian Army was based in the city and also fought on the
Isonzo front. During the First World War many Slovenes in
Carinthia and
Styria were detained on suspicion of being enemies of the Austrian Empire. This led to distrust between Austrian Germans and Slovenes. After the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Maribor was claimed by both the
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and
German Austria. On 1 November 1918, a meeting was held by Colonel Anton Holik in the Melje barracks, where it was decided that the city would be part of German Austria. Ethnic Slovene Major
Rudolf Maister, who was present at the meeting, denounced the decision and organised Slovenian military units that were able to seize control of the city. All Austrian officers and soldiers were disarmed and demobilised to the new state of German Austria. The German city council then held a secret meeting, where it was decided to do whatever possible to regain Maribor for German Austria. They organised a military unit called the Green Guard (
Schutzwehr), and approximately 400 well-armed soldiers of this unit opposed the pro-Slovenian and pro-
Yugoslav Major Maister. Slovenian troops surprised and disarmed the Green Guard early on the morning of 23 November. Thereafter, the city remained in Slovenian hands. On 27 January 1919, Austrian Germans gathered to await the
United States peace delegation at the city's marketplace were fired upon by Slovenian troops. Nine citizens were killed and eighteen were seriously wounded; who had actually ordered the shooting has never been unequivocally established. German sources accused Maister's troops of shooting without cause. In turn Slovene witnesses such as Maks Pohar claimed that the Austrian Germans attacked the Slovenian soldiers guarding the town hall, one even discharging a revolver and hitting one Slovenian soldier in the bayonet. After 1918, most of Maribor's Austrian Germans left the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes for
Austria. A policy of
cultural assimilation was pursued in Yugoslavia against the Austrian German minority similar to the
Germanization policy followed by Austria against its Slovene minority in
Carinthia. From 1922 to 1929, Maribor was the seat of the
Maribor Oblast, a subdivision within Yugoslavia and was later part of the
Drava Banovina. Up until
World War II, Maribor was considered the fastest-developing city in the country.
World War II and aftermath on the
Old Bridge in Maribor, Yugoslavia in 1941 In 1941
Lower Styria, the predominantly Slovene part of Styria, was annexed by Nazi Germany. German troops marched into the town at 9 pm on 8 April 1941. On 26 April
Adolf Hitler, who encouraged his followers to "make this land German again", visited Maribor and a grand reception was organised in the city castle by the local Germans. Immediately after the occupation, Nazi Germany began mass expulsions of Slovenes to the
Independent State of Croatia,
Serbia, and later to the
concentration and work camps in Germany. The Nazi goal was to Germanize the population of Lower Styria after the war. Slovene patriots were taken hostage and many were later shot in the prisons of Maribor and Graz. This led to organised resistance by
Slovene partisans. The first act of resistance in Maribor and occupied Slovenia occurred only three days after Hitler's visit, when Slovene communists and
SKOJ members burned two German cars. Maribor was the site of a
German prisoner-of-war camp from 1941 to 1945 for many British, Australian, and New Zealand troops who had been captured in
Crete in 1941. In 1944, the largest mass rescue of POWs of the war in Europe took place when 105 Allied prisoners from the camp were freed by Slovene partisans in the
Raid at Ožbalt. The city, a major industrial centre with an extensive armament industry, was systematically bombed by the
Allies in the closing years of
World War II. A total of 29 bombing raids devastated some 47% of the city area, killing 483 civilians and leaving over 4,200 people homeless. Over 2,600 people died in Maribor during the war. By the end of the war, Maribor was the most war-damaged major town of Yugoslavia. The remaining German-speaking population, except those who had actively supported the resistance during the war, was
summarily expelled at the end of the war in May 1945. At the same time
Croatian Home Guard members and their relatives who tried to escape from Yugoslavia were executed by the
Yugoslav Army. The existence of
nine mass graves in and near Maribor was revealed after Slovenia's independence.
Contemporary history After the Second World War, Maribor became part of
SR Slovenia, within
SFR Yugoslavia. A major process of renewal and reconstruction began in the city. The first clash between the Yugoslav People's Army and the
Slovenian Territorial Defence in Slovenia's
war of independence happened in nearby
Pekre and on the streets of Maribor, resulting in the conflict's first casualty. After Slovenia
seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991, the loss of the Yugoslav market severely strained the city's economy, which was based on heavy industry. The city saw a record unemployment rate of nearly 25%. The economic situation of Maribor after the mid-1990s crisis worsened again with the onset of
global economic crisis combined with the
European sovereign-debt crisis, which was one of the causes for the beginning of
2012–13 Maribor protests which spread into
2012–2013 Slovenian protests. In 2012, Maribor was one of the two
European Capitals of Culture, and the following year, Maribor was the
European Youth Capital. ==Geography==