On the dunes near the Warta, various ancient flint tools and implements have been found, among them being knives, burins, and tanged points.

A permanent settlement arose along the Amber Road, which led from the Roman Empire to the Baltic Sea, traversing the area of present-day Konin.

A map drawn by Ptolemy identified the settlement as Setidava (or Getidava), a probable spot to wade across the Warta and containing an emporium of some importance to merchants travelling along the route.

[3] The settlement's primary burial ground, situated on the dunes west of the centre of today's Konin, dates back to the Przeworsk culture (Kultura Przeworska) of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

Toward the end of the early Middle Ages, Gród Kaszuba was the most significant of the fortified settlements near present-day Konin.

The oldest available written work confirming the location of the town is associated with Gosław, the chief officer of a group of settlers, and was recorded in 1293.

Records from that era indicate that Konin possessed a Castellan, an office of significance in feudal Poland, and one which only the oldest towns in the country were granted.

At approximately the midpoint of the century, Konin became the judicial seat of the Kalisz Voivodeship and functioned under the authority of a Starost.

(Władysław engineered a historic debilitation of the political and military power of the Teutonic Knights by means of his Polish-Lithuanian victory at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.)

With regard to Konin, it was 15 infantrymen; by comparison, Poznań, the capital of Greater Poland, was bound to put up 60, while Kalisz, nearby Słupca and Kłodawa, and Koło were to provide 30, 20, 20, and 15 men, respectively.

The 16th century, the period of Poland's golden age, was a time of significant economic, political, military, cultural, and territorial growth.

However, Konin may have been one of the smaller towns of the time in eastern Greater Poland, based on its "Szos", the tax assessed on its earnings and the possessions of its townspeople.

Subsequent efforts to revitalize Konin included King Władysław IV's 1646 proclamation, confirming the town's right to conduct two fairs annually and promoting participation in those events by offering military protection to merchants who attended them, and a 1652 edict of the Starost, licensing the Scottish community of Konin to erect breweries.

Poland's territory was occupied and divided among three bordering countries - Russia, Prussia, and Austria - in three stages, occurring in the years of 1772, 1793 and 1795.

[9] The 19th century began with the general, European disorder of the Napoleonic Wars, which neither eastern Greater Poland nor Konin escaped.

At the start of the century, the Duchy of Warsaw was created as a Polish formally independent state, de facto dependent upon Napoleon I Bonaparte.

[9] The subsequent collapse of the Napoleonic Empire resulted in the establishment of a new order in Europe, as well as within the Polish territories, including Konin.

The Congress of Vienna, assembled in 1814–1815 to arrange political changes on the continent, awarded Russia the majority of territories formerly held by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Those consequences included the denial of higher offices to Poles, the elimination of Polish as the official language, and the systematic russification of the primary and secondary schools.

[9] However, while nearby Łódź was becoming one of the most significant textile industrial centres in the world, only 12 cloth workshops and small factories existed in Konin in 1820.

[9] By the end of the century, there were two factories that produced machines and special tools for agriculture - the larger of them belonged to L. Reymond, a citizen of Switzerland, who settled permanently in Konin.

A quasi-military association, its objective was to maintain the fitness of teenagers, to improve their health, and to provide for readily trainable military recruits in the event of a possible national uprising or a defence need.

The subsequent inter-war economic crisis was harsh, and conditions did not begin to improve until the désenclavement of the town, attributable to the opening of a major railway, between Poznań and Warsaw, and the construction of a canal to Gopło Lake.

[15][16] Poles were also subjected to expulsions to the so-called General Government, carried out in late 1939 and in 1940, which especially pertained to owners of more well-kept houses, shops and workshops, which were then handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy.

The 14th-century castle, built of brick with some details made of sandstone (probably taken from the nearby quarry of Brzeźno village), had a perimeter in the shape of a regular quadrangle.

The main buildings were massive, with an octagonal watchtower in the southeast corner of the compound and a kind of great hall on its western side.

The line of walls, however, never entirely formed a closed circuit, as the Warta River and its nearby marshy grounds, bogs, earthworks, and retrenchments provided adequate protection in the gaps.

Also near Konin are the remains of the reinforced concrete bunkers employed by Poland's Armia Poznań during World War II.

The location of the Rescue Station was intended to draw attention to Poland's over-reliance on coal and formed part of Greenpeace's campaign to get its message across at the United Nations' global warming Conference in nearby Poznań.

[28] The presence of Greenpeace was generally well received by locals who came in the hundreds to participate in activities and listen to lectures about the environmental situation.