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Dresden

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Recorded Dresden history dates from 1206. Many events have occurred during that long span of time, ranging from the culturally significant to the famously tragic. The city was a humdrum market center and Slavic fishing village before the Wettin dynasty's Friedrich Augustus I came to power as elector of Saxony in 1694, when two nearby cities outdid his in size and prestige. Two centuries earlier, Leipzig already had a university and bustled with international trade-fair activity. And a tall, twin-steepled Gothic cathedral had stood on riverside Meissen's Burgberg promontory since 1290.

The free-spending elector, nicknamed August the Strong (August der Starke) set out to make his capital a flamboyantly Baroque "Florence on the Elbe." Flush with money from silver mines in the southerly Erzgebirge ore mountains, he put artisans to work and imported Italian stonemasons, along with Westphalian architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and Bavarian sculptor Balthasar Permoser.

Most of what they achieved turned into scorched rubble after the Anglo-American air raids of February 13-14, 1945-overnight attacks during which more than half a million incendiary bombs whipped up a hellish firestorm, causing a huge death toll and destruction throughout 80 percent of the illustrious Innenstadt. Proud Dresdners have been putting their city back together ever since.

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