The Roman Empire conquered the area in AD 83 and built a massive castrum near Bad Cannstatt, making it the most important regional centre for several centuries.

[27] Thus, the first settlement of Stuttgart was a massive Roman Castra stativa (Cannstatt Castrum)[26] built c. 90 AD to protect the Villas and vineyards blanketing the landscape and the road from Mogontiacum (now Mainz) to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg).

[35] Nevertheless, the existence of a settlement here (despite the terrain being more suited for that original stud farm) during the High Middle Ages is provided by a gift registry from Hirsau Abbey dated to around 1160 that mentions a "Hugo de Stuokarten".

[24] Total destruction of the county was prevented by Henry VII's death on 24 August 1313 and the elections of Louis IV as King of the Germans and Frederick III as anti-king.

Though Ulrich initially made territorial gains as a result of his decision to fight alongside the Emperor Maximilian I,[40] he was no friend of the powerful Swabian League nor of his own subjects,[40] who launched the Poor Conrad rebellion of 1514.

[27] Duke Christoph also responded to the increasing made for drinking water by embarking upon a massive hydraulic engineering project in the form of a 2,810 ft (860 m) tunnel to Pffaf Lake, the Glems, and the Nesenbach from 1566 to 1575.

[26] After the catastrophic defeat of the Protestant Heilbronn League by the Habsburgs at Nörlingen in 1634, Duke Eberhard III and his court fled in exile to Strasbourg, abandoning the Duchy to looting by pro-Habsburg forces.

[citation needed] For the first time in centuries, Duke Eberhard Ludwig moved the seat of the Duchy out of the declining city of Stuttgart in 1718 to Ludwigsburg, founded in 1704, while the namesake Baroque palace, known as the "Versailles of Swabia",[56] was still under construction.

[71] Stuttgart's literary tradition also bore yet more fruits, being the home of such writers of national importance as Wilhelm Hauff, Ludwig Uhland, Gustav Schwab, and Eduard Mörike.

Stuttgart is purported to be the location of the automobile's invention by Karl Benz and then industrialized by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in a small workshop in Bad Cannstatt that would become Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1887.

[83] Due to the Nazi Party's practice of Gleichschaltung, Stuttgart's political importance as state capital became totally nonexistent, though it remained the cultural and economic centre of the central Neckar region.

The heaviest raid took place on 12 September 1944, when the Royal Air Force, dropping over 184,000 bombs – including 75 blockbusters – levelled Stuttgart's city centre, killing 957 people in the resulting firestorm.

[97] In totality, Stuttgart was subjected to 53 bombing raids, resulting in the destruction of 57.7% of all buildings in the city,[e] the deaths of 4,477 inhabitants, the disappearance of 85 citizens, and the injury of 8,908 more people.

An early concept of the Marshall Plan aimed at supporting reconstruction and economic/political recovery across Europe was presented during a speech 6 September 1946 given by US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes at the Stuttgart Opera House.

Stammheim Prison, built from 1959 to 1963, came to be the place of incarceration for Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, members of a communist terrorist organization known as the Red Army Faction, during their trial at the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart in 1975.

Several attempts were made by the organization to free the terrorists during the "German Autumn" of 1977 that culminated in such events as the kidnap and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181.

The withdrawal of VII Corps caused a large reduction in the US military presence in the city and region and led to the closure of the majority of US installations in and around Stuttgart which resulted in the layoff of many local civilians who had been career employees of the US Army.

[125] The core area of Stuttgart lies in a fertile bowl-shaped valley about 900 ft (270 m) above sea level,[126][h] an hour from the Black Forest and Swabian Jura[26] on the banks of the Neckar river at 48°47′N 9°11′E / 48.783°N 9.183°E / 48.783; 9.183 115 mi (185 km) to the west and north of Munich.

Beyond bridges over an adjacent main road lies the final Green U park, Killesbergpark or 'Höhenpark' which is a former quarry that was converted for the Third Reich garden show of 1939 (and was used as a collection point for Jews awaiting transportation to concentration camps).

As a result of Stuttgart's long history of viticulture (Even today there are vineyards less than 500 m (1,640 ft) from the Main Station), there are more than 400 flights of stairs (known in the local dialect as the "Stäffele") around the city, equivalent to approximately 20 km (12 mi) of steps.

[142] Later, in the early 19th century, the city continued to grow and many vineyards were replaced by houses and streets and the Stäffele were used as footpaths to connect the newly built neighborhoods.

In October 2009 the Stuttgart Ministry of Agriculture announced that the European Union was to officially recognise the pasta dish Maultaschen as a "regional specialty", thus marking its significance to the cultural heritage of Baden-Württemberg.

The foremost of these is the Old State Gallery (opened in 1843, extended in 1984) which holds art dating from the 14th to 19th century including works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and Beuys.

On the Karlsplatz side of the Old Castle is a museum dedicated to the memory of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, former resident of Stuttgart who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler on 20 July 1944.

[157] By end of 2018 the largest groups of foreign nationals were Turks (17,900), Greeks (13,757), Italians (14,021), Croats (15,268), Serbs (5,844) followed by immigrants from Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Poland, France, Austria, Morocco and Cameroon.

Companies include Mercedes-Benz Group,[167] Porsche,[168] Robert Bosch GmbH,[169] McKesson Europe, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sika AG – all of whom have their world or European headquarters here.

Hundreds of SMEs are still based in Stuttgart (often termed Mittelstand), many still in family ownership with strong ties to the automotive, electronics, engineering and high-tech industry.

Many leading companies in the financial services sector are headquartered in Stuttgart with around 100 credit institutes in total (e.g. LBBW Bank, Wüstenrot & Württembergische, Allianz Life Assurance).

Following the suit of other German cities such as Berlin, Cologne and Hanover, on 1 March 2008 a low emission zone (LEZ) came into effect in Stuttgart with the aim of improving air quality.

Other lower-division football teams are Sportfreunde Stuttgart – most famous for taking part in the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1908, considered the first World Cup[181] – and FV Zuffenhausen.