During an excavation in 1948, a hoard wealth deposit dating from 600 BC was found containing 4 underground rooms with barrels of gold and silver.

A smaller treasure was found containing mainly bronze artefacts from the Trzciniec culture, dating from around 1700 BC.

The period of prosperity ended during the catastrophic Swedish invasion of Poland (1655–1660), when Rawa was captured by Swedes (September 8, 1655), who completely destroyed both town and castle (1657).

[5] In 1766, most of Rawa burned in a fire, and on February 4, 1793, the town was seized by the Kingdom of Prussia during the Second Partition of Poland.

Rawa quickly modernized, but this process was halted by the Tsarist repressions after the failed November Uprising of 1830.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Rawa was invaded by Germany, and already on September 10, German troops carried out a massacre of 40 inhabitants (17 Poles and 23 Jews) in the town.

[9] Some of the Poles expelled from the Gostyń County in German-annexed Greater Poland in December 1939 were deported to Rawa.

[10] During the AB-Aktion, Germans arrested 20 Poles in mid-June 1940,[11] among whom was parish priest Wacław Zienkowski, who joined the Polish resistance movement, helped Polish prisoners of war escape from the local German POW camp, and rescued local Jews.

At the same time the area included the streets of Studzienna, Zatylna, Starościanska, Bóźnicza and Zamkowa Wola.

The day before the action, about four thousand Jews from Biała Rawska were brought to Rawa Mazowiecka and spent that night in the open air.

The Jews were forced to leave their homes, grouped together and then deported aboard Holocaust trains to the Treblinka extermination camp.

The picturesque Rawa Castle was built by King Casimir III the Great in order to oversee and protect the southern parts of Mazovia, according to the ancient Chronicle of Jan Długosz.

Soon afterwards, high ranking Swedish officer Pontus De La Gardie was temporarily imprisoned in the remains of the castle.

Gyllenhjelm was captured in Valmiera by Lithuanians of Krzysztof Mikołaj "the Thunderbolt" Radziwiłł and Poles of Jan Zamoyski, during the Polish–Swedish War (1600–11).

Another famous prisoner of the Rawa Castle was Wawrzyniec Gradowski, a sorcerer and courtier of King Stephen Bathory, who in 1578 tried to poison him.