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History

Roman settlement at Baden-Baden has been dated as far back as the emperor Hadrian, but on dubious authority. The known ruins of the Roman bath were rediscovered just below the New Castle in 1847 and date to the reign of Caracalla (AD 210s), who visited the area to relieve his arthritic aches. The facilities were used by the Roman garrison in Strasbourg.

The town fell into ruin but its church was first constructed in the 7th century. By 1112, it was the seat of the Margraviate of Baden. The Lichtenthal Convent (Kloster Lichtenthal) was founded in 1254. The margraves initially used Hohenbaden Castle (the Old Castle, Altes Schloss), whose ruins still occupy the summit above the town, but they completed and moved to the New Castle (Neues Schloss) in 1479. The Margraviate was divided in 1535, with Baden-Baden becoming the capital of the Margraviate of Baden-Baden, while the other portion became the Margraviate of Baden-Durlach. The Baden-Baden witch trials, an investigating encompassing the entire territory and resulting in hundreds of verdicts, took place in 1627–1631. Baden suffered severely during the Thirty Years' War, particularly at the hands of the French, who plundered it in 1643. They returned to occupy the city in 1688 at the onset of the Nine Years' War, burning it to the ground the next year. The margravine Sibylla rebuilt the New Castle in 1697, but the margrave Louis William removed his seat to Rastatt in 1706. The Stiftskirche was rebuilt in 1753 and houses the tombs of several of the margraves.

The town began its recovery in the late 18th century, serving as a refuge for émigrés from the French Revolution. The town was frequented during the Second Congress of Rastatt in 1797–99 and became popular after the visit of the Prussian queen in the early 19th century. She came for medicinal reasons, as the waters were recommended for gout, rheumatism, paralysis, neuralgia, skin disorders, and stones. The Ducal government subsequently subsidized the resort's development. The town became a meeting place for the nobility and prosperous upper middle classes, who visited the hot springs and the town's other amenities: luxury hotels, the Spielbank Casino, horse races, and the gardens of the Lichtentaler Allee. Guests included Queen Victoria, Wilhelm I, and Berlioz. The pumproom (Trinkhalle) was completed in 1842. The Grand Duchy's railway's mainline reached Baden in 1845. Reaching its zenith under Napoleon III in the 1850s and '60s, Baden became "Europe's summer capital". With a population of around 10 000, the town's size could quadruple during the tourist season, with the French, British, Russians, and Americans all well represented. (French tourism fell off following the Franco-Prussian War.)

The theater was completed in 1861 and a Greek church with a gilt dome was erected on the Michaelsberg in 1863 to serve as the tomb of the teenage son of the prince of Moldavia Mihail Sturdza after he died during a family vacation. A Russian Orthodox church was also subsequently erected. The casino was closed for a time in the 1870s.

Just before the First World War, the town was receiving 70 000 visitors each year.

During the Second World War, 3.1% of the houses in Baden-Baden were completely destroyed by bombs and 125 civilians were killed. 5.8% of the houses were heavily damaged by bombs. Lichtenthal, a residential area in the southwest of the town, was hit by bombs and Saint Bonifatius Church was severely damaged on 11 March 1943. Balg, a residential area in the northeast of Baden-Baden, was hit by bombs on 17 December 1944. On 30 December 1944 one third of the buildings of Oos (i.e. about 300 houses), a residential area in the north of the town, was destroyed or heavily damaged by bombs and Saint Dionysius Church was severely damaged as well. On 2 January 1945 the railway station of Oos and various barracks on Schwarzwald Road were heavily damaged by bombs.

After World War II, Baden-Baden became the headquarters of the French occupation forces in Germany as well as of the Südwestfunk, one of Germany's large public broadcasting stations, which is now part of Südwestrundfunk. From 23 to 28 September 1981, the 11th Olympic Congress took place in Baden-Baden's Kurhaus. The town was later awarded the designation Olympic town. The Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Germany's largest opera and concert house, opened in 1998.

CFB Baden-Soellingen, a military airfield built in the 1950s in the Upper Rhine Plain, 10 km (6 mi) west of downtown Baden-Baden, was converted into a civil airport in the 1990s. Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport, or Baden Airpark is now the second-largest airport in Baden-Württemberg by number of passengers.

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