[2] Maidan is also a regular site for non-political displays and events; however, since 2014, most of them were moved to Sofiyivska Square or elsewhere, because making entertainment on a place where people were killed during Euromaidan was considered inappropriate.

The most famous Ukrainian writer, Taras Shevchenko lived in that area in 1859, in a building between Mala Zhytomyrska (Little Zhytomyr) and Mykhailivska vulytsia (Michael's Street).

In 1913, in front of the City Duma, a monument of Pyotr Stolypin (who was assassinated in Kyiv in 1911) was constructed, and it stood there until March 1917 at the dawn of the Revolutionary war within the Empire.

The newly constructed Kyiv Central Post Office and Trade-Union House with its high-rise clock located in the square, is very well known and frequently appears in pictures of the center of the city.

In 2001, as the square was the major center of the "Ukraine without Kuchma" mass protest campaign, the new extensive construction of the area was abruptly ordered by the Kyiv mayor of the time, Oleksandr Omelchenko.

[11] However, by now the square's monument to Kyi, Shchek, Khoryv and Lybid, the legendary founders of Kyiv, the folklore hero Cossack Mamay, the city's historic protector Archangel Michael as well as a more modern invention, the protecting goddess Berehynia surmounting the Independence Monument victory column commemorating the independence of Ukraine, and the many glass domes are easily recognisable as parts of the modern city centre.

A mostly underground shopping mall called Globus was built under the square to replace the old and shabby giant underpass formerly dubbed by Kyivans as "Truba" (the Tube).

As the central Kyiv square, following the end of Soviet era the Maidan has been the centre of public political activity.

In the autumn of 1990, students' protests and hunger strikes also known as the Revolution on Granite at the Maidan resulted in the resignation of the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR Vitaliy Masol.

During the Orange Revolution in late 2004, Maidan Nezalezhnosti received global media coverage, as hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the square and nearby streets, and pitched tents for several weeks, enduring the cold and snow.

The protests against electoral fraud resulted in an additional round of presidential elections being ordered by the Supreme Court of Ukraine, which were won by the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.

The square was the site of Euromaidan protests beginning in November 2013, progressing to violent clashes, fires, and ending in the February Revolution of Dignity.

[17][18][19] On 27 January 2014, Ukrainian police reported a 55-year-old man from Western Ukraine found dead hanging from the framework of a huge artificial 'New Year tree' in central Kyiv.

The tree, which had become a symbol of anti-government resistance, was at that time decorated with a poster of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and scrawled with graffiti opposing President Viktor Yanukovich.