Aachen (ä`khən), Aix-la-Chapelle (ĕks-lä-shäpĕl`), or Bad Aachen (bät ä`khən), city (1994 pop. 246,570), North Rhine–Westphalia, W Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. One of the great historic cities of Europe, it is now chiefly important as a rail and road hub and as an industrial center. Almost every branch of the iron and steel industry is represented in the area. Its manufactures include textiles, electrical goods, food (chocolate and candy), glass, machinery, rubber goods, metal products, and furniture. The city's hot mineral baths, frequented by the Romans in the 1st cent. A.D., are still used to treat gout, rheumatism, and skin diseases. Aachen is the site of a technical university and numerous other educational institutions. There are several cultural institutions, notably the Ludwig Art Forum, which exhibits modern art.

Charlemagne, who was probably born in Aachen in 742, made the city his northern capital and the leading center of Carolingian civilization. He built a splendid palace and founded the great cathedral, which contains his tomb. The cathedral, which has an octagonal nucleus modeled on the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, received extensive Gothic additions in the 14th–15th cent. From 936 to 1531, German kings were usually crowned at Aachen. Treaties ending the War of Devolution Devolution, War of, 1667–68, undertaken by Louis XIV for the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands. On her marriage to Louis, Marie Thérèse, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, had renounced her rights of inheritance in return for a large dowry.
..... Click the link for more information. (1668) and the War of the Austrian Succession 2)) was signed. Prussia gained Silesia and thus emerged as a major European power; the Hapsburgs thenceforth looked to the east for resources to develop their state.

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See biography by E. Crankshaw, Maria Theresa (1970); C. A.
..... Click the link for more information. (1748) were signed there (see Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of 1 Compact of May 2, 1668, that ended the French invasion of the Spanish Netherlands (see Devolution, War of ). France kept most of its conquests in Flanders; Cambrai, Aire, Saint-Omer, and the province of Franche-Comté were returned to Spain; and the remainder of Spain's
..... Click the link for more information. ). It was occupied (1794) by French troops and later annexed (1801) by France. It passed to Prussia in 1815. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) Czar Alexander I of Russia unsuccessfully proposed that the Holy Alliance Holy Alliance, 1815, agreement among the emperors of Russia and Austria and the king of Prussia, signed on Sept. 26. It was quite distinct from the Quadruple Alliance (Quintuple, after the admission of France) of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, arrived
..... Click the link for more information. be tightened. From 1918 to 1930 the city was occupied by the Allies as a result of Germany's defeat in World War I. During World War II approximately two thirds of Aachen was destroyed by aerial bombardment, and the city was the first major German city to fall (Oct., 1944) to the Allies.

Aachen

French Aix-la-Chapelle

City (pop., 1995 est.: 247,000), western Germany, southwest of Cologne. It was inhabited by Romans in the 1st century AD. A center of Carolingian culture, and the second city of Charlemagne's empire, it was the site of his great palace. The cathedral built by Charlemagne c. 800 saw the coronation of most German kings of the 10th–16th century; his chapel, with his tomb, remains as part of the larger Gothic cathedral today. Aachen was part of France 1801–15. It is famous for its many spas.

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