The first mention of the city (with the name Aebura) occurs in Livy's description of a battle between the Romans and the Carpetanoi, a Celtiberian tribe.

In this period, Talavera de la Reina was a rich city with cattle markets and commercial exchange.

The markets gained new strength, and the population, a mixture of Christians, Muslims and Jews, lived in harmony for some centuries.

[6] 12th-century geographer Al-Idrisi reflects on Talavera describing it as a "large town by the riverside of the Tagus", "with a great number of watermills" and "surrounded of fertile fields".

[10] Following the battle of Las Navas in 1212, the territory north of the Montes de Toledo became secure from Muslim incursions for good.

[14] By the mid 13th century, Talavera and Plasencia sealed the creation of a brotherhood seeking to counter the territorial push southwards of the powerful concejo of Ávila.

[15] Formerly a realengo [es] town, sometimes property of queens, such as Maria of Portugal, Talavera was transferred by Henry II of Castile on 25 June 1369 to Gómez Manrique (the transfer was confirmed in the 1371 Cortes of Toro), the Archbishop of Toledo, as payment for the latter's support in the Castilian Civil War, and, since then, the town became attached to the Archbishops of Toledo.

[16][17] The change from the concejo abierto towards a regimiento system of municipal government in Talavera should have happened by the second half of the 14th century.

[18] Unlike other locations the chief municipal public offices (regidurías) in Talavera were not subject to transfer from father to son, so the nobiliary elite relied in an alternative strategy to ensure its supremacy, based on a system that allowed them to control the candidates to the regidoría.

In the mid-18th century, by 1748, as part of the economic policies enforced by the Spanish Bourbons, the Royal Factory of Silk, Silver and Gold Fabric, was opened in the city, during the reign of Ferdinand VI.

[28] Following the September 1923 coup d'etat [es] and the ensuing installment of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the local branch of the Patriotic Union (UP) formed in the city in March 1924 and the paramilitary Somatén in December 1924, during an event scheduled by Duchess of Talavera.

[29] The good connections of Mayor Justiniano López Brea with provincial and national officeholders fostered several projects of public works in the later part of the dictatorial period.

[30] During the Francoist dictatorship the Instituto Nacional de Colonización promoted a large irrigated zone in the surroundings of Talavera, following which two new settlements were created, called Talavera la Nueva and Alberche del Caudillo, the latter located in the neighboring Calera y Chozas municipality.

During the 1960s a baby boom caused an increase in the population, added to by the immigrants coming from the nearby villages and poor areas of Extremadura.

The succeeding mayor, Pablo Tello of the Socialist Party, made significant contributions, including the creation of Alameda Park.

[31] Rising over 192 metres, the Puente de Castilla-La Mancha [es], built in the outskirts of the city, was the highest bridge in Spain at the time of its completion.

[33] The city is internationally known for its ceramics, which Philip II of Spain used as tiled revetments in many of his works, such as the monastery of El Escorial.