[26] According to historian Teodor Narbutt the Lithuanians previously worshiped god Kaunis whose statue was located in the current Kaunas Old Town near Neman River.

During that time, people settled in some territories of the present Kaunas: the confluence of the two longest rivers of Lithuania area, Eiguliai, Lampėdžiai, Linkuva, Kaniūkai, Marvelė, Pajiesys, Romainiai, Petrašiūnai, Sargėnai, and Veršvai sites.

[44][28] Moreover, Vytautas ceded Kaunas the right to own the scales used for weighing the goods brought to the city or packed on the site, the wax processing, and woolen cloth-trimming facilities.

The power of the self-governing Kaunas was shared by three interrelated major institutions: vaitas (the Mayor), the Magistrate (12 lay judges and 4 burgomasters), and the so-called Benchers' Court (12 persons).

[32][28] Furthermore, in the 16th century Grand Duchess Bona Sforza achieved that the Kaunas Eldership should become a property of the Jagiellonian dynasty; starting in 1533, she carried out the Volok Reform.

[50] After the unsuccessful January Uprising in 1863 against the Russian Empire, the tsarist authority moved the Catholic Seminary of Varniai, prominent bishop Motiejus Valančius and Samogitian diocese institutions to Kaunas, where they were given the former Bernardine Monastery Palace and St. George the Martyr Church.

[51] Only selected noblemen were permitted to study in the Seminary, with the only exception being peasant son Antanas Baranauskas, who illegally received the nobleman documents from Karolina Praniauskaitė.

All of the city's streets were paved, horse-drawn transportation was replaced with modern bus lines, new suburbs were planned and built (Žaliakalnis neighbourhood in particular), and new parks and squares were established.

[72] President Antanas Smetona categorically declined to accept most of the ultimatum's demands, argued for military resistance and was supported by Kazys Musteikis, Konstantinas Šakenis, Kazimieras Jokantas, however the Commander of the Armed Forces Vincas Vitkauskas, Divisional General Stasys Raštikis, Kazys Bizauskas, Antanas Merkys and most of the Lithuanian government members decided that it would be impossible, especially the previously stationed Soviet soldiers, and accepted the ultimatum.

Both targets of the ultimatum, Minister of the Interior Kazys Skučas and the Director of the State Security Department of Lithuania Augustinas Povilaitis, were transported to Moscow and later executed.

Shortly afterwards, on 17 June 1940 the puppet People's Government of Lithuania was formed, which consistently destroyed Lithuanian society and political institutions and opened the way for the Communist Party to establish itself.

[83] In 1941, Kazys Škirpa, Leonas Prapuolenis, Juozas Ambrazevičius and their supporters, including the former Commander of the Lithuanian Army General Stasys Raštikis, whose whole family was deported to Siberia, began organizing an uprising.

[90] According to the Lithuanian-American Holocaust historian Saulius Sužiedėlis, "none of this amounted to a public scolding which alone could have persuaded at least some of the Lithuanians who had volunteered or been co-opted into participating in the killings to rethink their behavior."

Already in July, in a conversation the Tilsit Nazi Gestapo agent Heinz Gräfe [de] clearly stated to Stasys Raštikis that the Provisional Government was formed without German knowledge.

Members of the Provisional Government then went as a body to the Garden of the Vytautas the Great War Museum, where they laid a wreath near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the presence of numerous audience.

[97] Nazi Germany established the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltic states and much of Belarus, and the administrative centre for Lithuania (Generalbezirk Litauen) was in Kaunas ruled by a Generalkommissar Adrian von Renteln.

Both before and during the German occupation starting 25 June, the anti-Communists, encouraged by the anti-Semitic leadership of the Berlin-based Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), began to attack Jews, blaming them for the Soviet repressions, especially along Jurbarko and Kriščiukaičio streets.

In strict conspiracy, Catholic priest Sigitas Tamkevičius (now the Archbishop Metropolitan of Kaunas) implemented this idea and its first issue was published in the Alytus district on 19 March 1972.

[111] On 1 November 1987, a non-sanctioned rally took place near the Kaunas Cathedral Basilica, where people gathered to mark famous Lithuanian poet Maironis' 125th-birthday anniversary.

Since the restoration of independence, substantially improving air and land transport links with Western Europe have made Kaunas easily accessible to foreign tourists.

The Kazlų Rūda Forest,[122] west of Kaunas, creates a microclimate around the city, regulating humidity and temperature of the air, and protecting it from strong westerly winds.

[134] Moreover, since 1664 Krzysztof Zygmunt Pac funded the construction of the Pažaislis Monastery and the Church of the Visitation, a splendid example of Italian Baroque in Lithuania, dedicated to Camaldolese monks.

[138] After the restoration of Lithuania's statehood in 1918, the Lithuanian Ecclesiastical Province was established by Pope Pius XI in 1926 with a center in Kaunas, while the Cathedral of Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul received the archcathedral status and since then has archbishop's metropolitan throne.

[176] The overall improvement of education system during the interwar period resulted in 92% of literacy rate of the population in Lithuania in 1939 (mostly only part of the older age inhabitants were still illiterate).

[185] Already in the fall of 1919 a memorandum of Lithuanian cultural workers to establish a tertiary education institution in Kaunas was handed to the Government of Lithuania, however it was rejected due to difficult political and financial situation.

[185][186] On 16 February 1922, the Higher Courses were reorganized to the University of Lithuania and in March an autonomy was granted, while in 1930 it was renamed after Vytautas the Great commemorating his 500th death anniversary.

[199] Lithuania's premiere last resting place formally designated for graves of people influential in national history, politics, and arts is Petrašiūnai Cemetery in Kaunas.

[214] Kaunas Free Economic Zone[215] established in 1996 has also attracted some investors from abroad, including the development of the new 200 MW Cogeneration Power Plant project, proposed by the Finnish capital company Fortum Heat Lithuania.

European route E67 is a highway running from Prague in the Czech Republic to Helsinki in Finland by way of Poland, Kaunas, Riga (Latvia), and Tallinn (Estonia).

Kaunas Railway Station is an important hub serving direct passenger connections to Vilnius and Warsaw as well as being a transit point of Pan-European corridors I and IX.