Parade Square

Wesoła (Polish pronunciation: [vɛˈsɔwa]) is one of the districts of Warsaw, and has been as such since October 27, 2002. Wesoła is located in the south-eastern part of city. Wesoła received town privileges on December 17, 1968. Then, the town included Wola Grzybowska, Wesoła, Groszówka, Grzybowa, Zielona and Stara Miłosna estates. The development of the area was determined by its locality to 3 important routes. The first route, called Stary Trakt (English: Old Route), comes from Grochów, then travels through Okuniew, Stanisławów, and finally through South Podlasie towards Russia. Established near this route was Grzybowa village with Zielona (English: Green) inn and Wola Grzybowa, which now is called Wola Grzybowska. Near the second route, which comes from Prague, through Kamion, Grochowo, to Mińsk Mazowiecki, then through Terespol and Brest, the Miłosna village developed. In 1823 on the Stanisław Staszic's initiative a road was built, called Trakt Brzeski. The third route was the Warsaw–Terespol Railway, started on September 18, 1867. It comes from Warsaw to Terespol, through Siedlce and Łuków. Despite Warsaw growing and annexing new areas, there was no case where two streets shared the same name. The only exception is Wesoła, where a lot of streets have the same name, for example with streets in Warsaw. It presents many difficulties, so addresses in Wesoła are given with a 'Wesoła' annotation.

The Battle of Warsaw (German: Schlacht von Warschau; Polish: Bitwa pod Warszawą; Swedish: Tredagarsslaget vid Warschau) took place near Warsaw on July 28–July 30 [O.S. July 18–20] 1656, between the armies of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden and Brandenburg. It was a major battle in the Second Northern War between Poland and Sweden in the period 1655–1660, also known as The Deluge. According to Hajo Holborn, it marked "the beginning of Prussian military history".In the battle, a smaller Swedish-Brandenburg force, but with the fire superiority of infantry and artillery gained victory over a Polish–Lithuanian force superior in numbers, though in the long term the victory achieved little. Polish–Lithuanian losses were insignificant, since the Polish noble levy promptly and unbroken retreated from the battlefield.

Centrum is a station on Line M1 of the Warsaw Metro, located under Plac Defilad, a square in the borough of Śródmieście, next to the Dmowski roundabout, where the two main streets, Marszałkowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie, intersect. It is located close to the Palace of Culture and Science and Warszawa Centralna railway station. It has two levels: the lower one contains the platforms and the upper one is a shopping mall. The station was opened on 26 May 1998 as the northern terminus of an extension from Politechnika. On 11 May 2001, the line was extended north to Ratusz.

The Museum of Communism is a museum focusing on the communist period of Polish history, located in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. The museum was founded in 1999 by Czeslaw Bielecki, Jacek Fedorowicz, and Andrzej Wajda, with the cooperation of Teresa Bogucka, Anna Fedorowicz, and Krystyna Zachwatowicz.

Collegium Civitas is a private university for the social sciences located in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. It is open to new inventions in higher education: interdisciplinary approaches, closer lecturer-student relations, study abroad programs, internships, and the encouragement and supervision of individual student research projects.

Muzeum Techniki w Warszawie is a museum in Warsaw, Poland. It was established in 1955. It is located in the Palace of Culture & Science. Exhibits include motorbikes, aeroplanes, 19th century musical boxes, and historic cars.

The Museum of Evolution of Polish Academy of Sciences (Polish: Muzeum Ewolucji Instytutu Paleobiologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk) is the display area of the natural history museum in Warsaw, Poland. It is the public front of the Muzeum i Instytut Zoologii or Zoology Museum and the Instytut Paleobiologii or Paleobiology Institute. It is based at the Palace of Culture and Science.

The Palace of Culture and Science (Polish: Pałac Kultury i Nauki; abbreviated PKiN) is a notable high-rise building in central Warsaw, Poland. With a total height of 237 metres (778 ft) it is the second tallest building in both Warsaw and Poland after Varso, the 6th-tallest building in the European Union (including spire) and one of the tallest on the European continent. Constructed in 1955, it houses various public and cultural institutions such as cinemas, theatres, libraries, sports clubs, university faculties, and authorities of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 2007, it has been enlisted in the Registry of Objects of Cultural Heritage. Motivated by Polish historical architecture and American art deco high-rise buildings, the PKiN was designed by Soviet Russian architect Lev Rudnev in "Seven Sisters" style and is informally referred to as the Eighth Sister. The Palace was also the tallest clock tower in the world until the installation of a clock mechanism on the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in Tokyo, Japan.

The Warsaw Uprising of 1794 or Warsaw Insurrection (Polish: insurekcja warszawska) was an armed insurrection by the people of Warsaw early in the Kościuszko Uprising. Supported by the Polish Army, the uprising aimed to throw off control by the Russian Empire of the Polish capital city (Warsaw). It began on 17 April 1794, soon after Tadeusz Kościuszko's victory at the Battle of Racławice. Although the Russian forces had more soldiers and better equipment, the Polish regular forces and militia, armed with rifles and sabres from the Warsaw Arsenal, inflicted heavy losses on the surprised enemy garrison. Russian soldiers found themselves under crossfire from all sides and from buildings, and several units broke early and suffered heavy casualties in their retreat. Kościuszko's envoy, Tomasz Maruszewski, and Ignacy Działyński and others had been laying the groundwork for the uprising since early 1793. They succeeded in winning popular support: the majority of Polish units stationed in Warsaw joined the ranks of the uprising. A National Militia was formed by several thousand volunteers, led by Jan Kiliński, a master shoemaker. Within hours, the fighting had spread from a single street at the western outskirts of Warsaw's Old Town to the entire city. Part of the Russian garrison was able to retreat to Powązki under the cover of Prussian cavalry, but most of it was trapped inside the city. The isolated Russian forces resisted in several areas for two more days.

The siege of Warsaw in 1939 was fought between the Polish Warsaw Army (Polish: Armia Warszawa) garrisoned and entrenched in Warsaw and the invading German Army.: 70–78 It began with huge aerial bombardments initiated by the Luftwaffe starting on September 1, 1939 following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Land fighting started on September 8, when the first German armored units reached the Wola district and south-western suburbs of the city. Despite German radio broadcasts claiming to have captured Warsaw, the initial enemy attack was repelled and soon afterwards Warsaw was placed under siege. The siege lasted until September 28, when the Polish garrison, commanded under General Walerian Czuma, officially capitulated. The following day approximately 140,000 Polish troops left the city and were taken as prisoners of war. On October 1 the Wehrmacht entered Warsaw, which started a period of German occupation that lasted until the devastating Warsaw Uprising and later until January 17, 1945, when the Wehrmacht troops abandoned the city due to the advance of Soviet forces. Around 18,000 civilians of Warsaw perished during the siege. As a result of the air bombardments, 10% of the city's buildings were entirely destroyed and further 40% were heavily damaged.: 78 Under the international rules regarding aerial warfare in 1939 Warsaw was considered a legitimate military target as the city was on the front line during the fighting and it was heavily defended by the Polish army.

The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa). The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army temporarily halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.The Uprising began on 1 August 1944 as part of a nationwide Operation Tempest, launched at the time of the Soviet Lublin–Brest Offensive. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans out of Warsaw while helping the Allies defeat Germany. An additional, political goal of the Polish Underground State was to liberate Poland's capital and assert Polish sovereignty before the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation could assume control. Other immediate causes included a threat of mass German round-ups of able-bodied Poles for "evacuation"; calls by Radio Moscow's Polish Service for uprising; and an emotional Polish desire for justice and revenge against the enemy after five years of German occupation.Initially, the Poles established control over most of central Warsaw, but the Soviets ignored Polish attempts to make radio contact with them and did not advance beyond the city limits. Intense street fighting between the Germans and Poles continued. By 14 September, the eastern bank of the Vistula River opposite the Polish resistance positions was taken over by the Polish troops fighting under the Soviet command; 1,200 men made it across the river, but they were not reinforced by the Red Army. This, and the lack of air support from the Soviet air base five-minutes flying time away, led to allegations that Joseph Stalin tactically halted his forces to let the operation fail and allow the Polish resistance to be crushed. Arthur Koestler called the Soviet attitude "one of the major infamies of this war which will rank for the future historian on the same ethical level with Lidice." On the other hand, David Glantz argued that the uprising started too early and the Red Army could not realistically have aided it, regardless of Soviet intentions.Winston Churchill pleaded with Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt to help Britain's Polish allies, to no avail. Then, without Soviet air clearance, Churchill sent over 200 low-level supply drops by the Royal Air Force, the South African Air Force, and the Polish Air Force under British High Command, in an operation known as the Warsaw Airlift. Later, after gaining Soviet air clearance, the U.S. Army Air Force sent one high-level mass airdrop as part of Operation Frantic, although 80% of these supplies landed in German-controlled territory.Although the exact number of casualties is unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods. German casualties totalled over 2,000 to 17,000 soldiers killed and missing. During the urban combat, approximately 25% of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed. Following the surrender of Polish forces, German troops systematically levelled another 35% of the city block by block. Together with earlier damage suffered in the 1939 invasion of Poland and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, over 85% of the city was destroyed by January 1945 when the course of the events in the Eastern Front forced the Germans to abandon the city.

The National Philharmonic in Warsaw (Polish: Filharmonia Narodowa w Warszawie) is a Polish cultural institution, located at 5 Jasna Street in Warsaw. The building was built between 1900 and 1901, under the direction of Karol Kozłowski, to be reconstructed in 1955 by Eugeniusz Szparkowski. The director of the institution is Wojciech Nowak. It is the main venue of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 1955, the institution hosts the International Chopin Piano Competition. The building also hosts the annual festival Warsaw Autumn.