[3] Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg, was buried in the city's cathedral after his death.

In the Late Middle Ages, Magdeburg was one of the largest and most prosperous German cities and a notable member of the Hanseatic League.

One of the most notable people from the city was Otto von Guericke, famous for his experiments with the Magdeburg hemispheres.

[4] The Catholic League sacked Magdeburg in 1631,[3] resulting in the death of 25,000 non-combatants, the largest loss of the Thirty Years' War.

[9] Founded by Charlemagne in 805 as Magadoburg (probably from Old High German magado for big, mighty and burg for fortress[10]), the town was fortified in 919 by King Henry the Fowler against the Magyars and Slavs.

Queen Edith loved the town and often resided there;[11] at her death she was buried in the crypt of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Maurice, later rebuilt as the cathedral.

He granted the abbey the right to income from tithes and to corvée labour from the surrounding countryside.

The archbishopric under Adalbert included the bishoprics of Havelberg, Brandenburg, Merseburg, Meissen and Naumburg-Zeitz.

The archbishops played a prominent role in the German colonisation of the Slavic lands east of the Elbe river.

In 1035 Magdeburg received a patent giving the city the right to hold trade exhibitions and conventions.

The town had active maritime commerce on the west (towards Flanders), with the countries of the North Sea, and maintained traffic and communication with the interior (for example Braunschweig).

Around Easter 1497, the then twelve-year-old Martin Luther attended school in Magdeburg, where he was exposed to the teachings of the Brethren of the Common Life.

[11] As it had not accepted the Augsburg Interim decree (1548), the city, by the emperor's commands, was besieged (1550–1551) by Maurice, Elector of Saxony, but it retained its independence.

In the following years, Magdeburg gained a reputation as a stronghold of Protestantism and became the first major city to publish the writings of Martin Luther.

[11] In 1629 the city withstood its first siege during the Thirty Years' War, by Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Protestant convert to Catholicism.

[13][14][15] The city made an astonishingly quick recovery, due especially to the energy and dedication of its mayor Otto von Guericke, who was also a noted scientist.

Just six years after the end of the terribly destructive war, Magdeburg was the scene of the famous scientific experiment known as The Magdeburg hemispheres by which the existence of vacuum – hitherto hotly debated – was empirically proven, with enormous implications for the later developments of physics.

[17] During World War I, Polish leader Józef Piłsudski and his close associate Kazimierz Sosnkowski were imprisoned in the city by Germany in 1917–1918.

Before the reunification of Germany, many surviving Gründerzeit buildings were left uninhabited and, after years of degradation, waiting for demolition.

In Magdeburg, with water levels of five metres (16 ft) above normal, about 23,000 residents had to leave their homes on 9 June.

[26] On 20 December 2024, at least five people were killed and more than 200 injured at the Magdeburg Christmas market when a car was driven into the crowd.

[27] The suspect, who was arrested at the scene, was identified in German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi psychiatrist living in Germany since 2006.

At that time the city was poised to become a giant metropolis, but the events of WWII changed its future.

After the German Reunification, the population of Magdeburg declined due to some loss of industries, when many residents moved to former West Germany.

Other events are the Stadtfest, Christopher Street Day, Elbe in Flames, and the Europafest Magdeburg.

The tradition dates back to September 1010, when the holy feast of the Theban Legion was celebrated in Magdeburg (then called Magathaburg).

The square in front of the cathedral (also called the Neuer Markt, or "new marketplace") was occupied by an imperial palace (Kaiserpfalz), which was destroyed in the fire of 1207.