Paris was founded towards the end of the 3rd century BC on what is now the Île de la Cité by a tribe of Celtic Gauls known as the Parisii. Centuries of conflict between the Gauls and Romans ended in 52 BC, when Julius Caesar's legions took control of the territory. Christianity was introduced in the 2nd century AD, and the Roman party was finally crashed in the 5th century by the arrival of the Franks. In 508 AD, Frankish king Clovis I united Gaul as a kingdom and made Paris his capital, naming it after the original Parisii tribe.

Paris prospered during the Middle Ages: In the 12th century, construction began on the cathedral of Notre Dame (work continued for nearly 200 years), while the Marais area north of the Seine was drained and settled to become what's known today as the Right Bank. The Sorbonne opened its doors in 1253, the beautiful Sainte Chapelle was consecrated in 1248 and the Louvre got its start as a riverside fortress around 1200.

Scandinavian Vikings (also known as Norsemen, or Normans) began raiding France's western coast in the 9th century; after three centuries of conflict, they started to push toward Paris. These conflicts gave birth to the Hundred Years War between Norman England and Paris' Capetian dynasty, eventually resulting in the French defeat at Agincourt in 1415 and English control of Paris in 1420. In 1429, a 17-year-old stripling called Jeanne d'Arc re-rallied the French troops to defeat the English at Orléans, and, with the exception of Calais, the English were expelled from France in 1453.

The Renaissance helped Paris get back on its feet at the end of the 1400s, and many of the city's signature buildings and monuments sprang up during the period. By the late 16th century Paris was again up in arms, this time in the name of religion. Clashes between the Huguenot Protestants and Catholic groups sank to their darkest levels in 1572 with the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 3000 Huguenots in town to celebrate the wedding of Henri of Navarre (later, King Henri IV).

Louis XIV, known as le Roi Soleil (the Sun King), ascended to the throne in 1643 at the tender age of five and held the crown until 1715. During his reign, he nearly bankrupted the national treasury with battling and building. His most tangible legacy is the palace at Versailles, 23km (15mi) south-west of Paris. The excesses of Louis XVI and his capricious queen, Marie-Antoinette, led to an uprising of Parisians on 14 July 1789 and the storming of the Bastille prison - kick-starting the French Revolution.

The populist ideals of the revolution's early stages quickly gave way to a Reign of Terror, wherein even a few of the original 'patriots' got uncomfortably cosy with Madame la Guillotine. The unstable post-revolution government was consolidated in 1799 under a young Corsican general, Napoleon Bonaparte, who adopted the title First Consul. In 1804, the Pope crowned him Emperor of the French, and Napoleon proceeded to sweep most of Europe under his wing. Napoleon's hunger for conquest led to his defeat, first in Russia in 1812 and later at Belgium's Waterloo in 1815. His legacy in modern France includes the national legal code, which bears his name, and monuments such as the massive neoclassical Arc de Triomphe.

Following Napoleon's exile, France faltered under a string of mostly inept rulers until a coup d'état in 1851 brought a new emperor, Napoleon III, to power. In 17 years, he oversaw the construction of a flashy new Paris, with wide boulevards, sculptured parks and - not insignificantly - a modern sewer system. Like his namesake uncle, however, this Napoleon and his penchant for pugnacity led to a costly and eventually unsuccessful war, this time with the Prussians in 1870. When news of their emperor's capture by the enemy reached Paris the masses took to the streets, demanding that a republic be created. Despite its bloody beginnings, the Third Republic ushered in the glittering halcyon years of the belle époque.