Heidelberg
Heidelberg (halfway between Stuttgart and Frankfurt) is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. As of 2002, there are 140,000 people living on the city's 109 km2.
Heidelberg lies on the river Neckar at the point where the Neckar leaves its narrow, steep valley in the Odenwald hills to flow into the Rhine valley where, 20 kilometers northwest of Heidelberg it joins the Rhine at Mannheim. The old city is long and narrow and is dominated by Heidelberg Castle which perches 200 metres above the Neckar on the steep wooded hill of the Königstuhl, surrounded by a park where the famous poet J.W. Goethe once walked.
The city is a vibrant mixture of tradition and modernity. In the past it has been a centre for both science and the arts and today this tradition is carried on with many research centres located in or around the city.
Heidelberg not only boasts a medieval castle, but it also is home to one of Europe's oldest educational institutes, the University of Heidelberg. Among the prominent thinkers to have been associated with the University over the centuries are Hegel, the philosopher of hermeneutics Hans-Georg Gadamer, the critical theorist Jürgen Habermas, and the discourse philosopher Karl-Otto Apel.
Heidelberg's most momentous student was Karl Drais who invented the bicycle in 1817.
History
- Heidelberg was first mentioned in 1196.
- Its university, the oldest in Germany, was founded in 1386.
- Heidelberg Catechism approved in 1563.
- The great classical scholar Friedrich Sylburg was librarian to the elector palatine from 1591 to 1596.
- City burned and castle partly destroyed by the French during the War of the Palatinate Succession 1693 (In fact this is a legend: Most of the destruction was caused by citizens who stole the stones for the reconstruction of the city after the war.)
- Discovery of spectral analysis by Robert Bunsen and Kirchhoff in 1860.
