The site of the Akropolis was very likely settled by Neolithic people thousands of years ago. Athens became the center of a powerful kingdom during Greece’s Mycenaean period of about 1400 to 1100 BC. Less is known about the city during Greece’s Dark Age, but Athens became a cultural center by about the year 800 BC. By 510 BC, Athens shook off the rule of tyrants and became one of the first democracies. Athens was one of the leaders in the war against Persia, when an Athenian Army defeated the Persians at Marathon in 490 and an Athenian led fleet beat a Persian armada in the straits of Salamis in 480. Subsequently, Athens enjoyed a golden age when great monuments were built on the Akropolis and poets and playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and sculptors like Pheidias and Myron flourished.

Between 431 and 404 BC, Athens fought a brutal war with its rival city, Sparta. Athens was eventually defeated and slid from its former glory. Even so, great Athenian philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle contributed much to human understanding.

Athens remained a center of culture and learning under Roman and Byzantine rule. After 1200 AD, the city changed hands several times between French, Catalans, Florentines, and Venetians. The Ottoman Empire conquered Greece by about 1453 and ruled for almost four hundred years. Athens was liberated during the Greek War of Independence in 1821-29 during which the city changed hands several times. Athens became the capital of the newly independent Kingdom of Greece in 1834.

In modern times, Athens has become the center of an increasingly prosperous society, with modernization proceeding apace. But the city retains many monuments of its former glory.