Essen Hauptbahnhof

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Essen, Germany.

Essen (German pronunciation: [ˈɛsn̩] (listen); Latin: Assindia) is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of 582,415 makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as the ninth-largest city of Germany. Essen lies in the larger Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region and is part of the cultural area Rhineland. Because of its central location in the Ruhr, Essen is often regarded as the Ruhr's "secret capital". Two rivers flow through the city: in the north, the Emscher, the Ruhr area's central river, and in the south, the Ruhr River, which is dammed in Essen to form the Lake Baldeney (Baldeneysee) and Lake Kettwig (Kettwiger See) reservoirs. The central and northern boroughs of Essen historically belong to the Low German (Westphalian) language area, and the south of the city to the Low Franconian (Bergish) area (closely related to Dutch). Essen is seat to several of the region's authorities, as well as to eight of the 100 largest publicly held German corporations by revenue, including three DAX-listed corporations. Essen is often considered the energy capital of Germany with E.ON and RWE, Germany's largest energy providers, both headquartered in the city. Essen is also known for its impact on the arts through the respected Folkwang University of the Arts, its Zollverein School of Management and Design, and the Red Dot industrial product design award. In early 2003, the universities of Essen and the nearby city of Duisburg (both established in 1972) were merged into the University of Duisburg-Essen with campuses in both cities and a university hospital in Essen. In 1958, Essen was chosen to serve as the seat to a Roman Catholic diocese (often referred to as Ruhrbistum or diocese of the Ruhr). Founded around 845, Essen remained a small town within the sphere of influence of an important ecclesiastical principality (Essen Abbey) until the onset of industrialization. The city then—especially through the Krupp family iron works—became one of Germany's most important coal and steel centers. Essen, until the 1970s, attracted workers from all over the country; it was the fifth-largest city in Germany between 1929 and 1988, peaking at over 730,000 inhabitants in 1962. Following the region-wide decline of heavy industries in the last decades of the 20th century, the city has seen the development of a strong tertiary sector of the economy. The most notable witness of this Strukturwandel (structural change) is the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, which has once been the largest of its kind in Europe. Ultimately closed in 1993, both the coking plant and the mine have been inscribed in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2001. Notable accomplishments of the city in recent years include the title of European Capital of Culture on behalf of the whole Ruhr area in 2010 and the selection as the European Green Capital for 2017.

The Bank im Bistum Essen eG (BIB) is a cooperative bank which was founded in 1966. The bank is located in Essen and is focused on a specifically defined clientele. These include the Catholic Church and its institutions. Its members are business clients like hospitals, foundations, church-related housing construction, homes for disabled people, retirement homes and other institutions of provision – as well as a number of private customers: staff members of the institutions mentioned above. By now people who do not work for the church can also become customers as well as atheists or people of other religions. Due to the bank's ethic sustainability orientation, numerous customers from the charitable-foundations-field have joined the bank in recent years. Companies that are solely profit oriented are, according to the bank, not part of the bank's customer base.The BIB is as well as the Bank für Kirche und Caritas eG in Paderborn, the DKM Darlehnskasse Münster and the Pax-Bank in Cologne one of the four catholic church banks in North Rhine-Westphalia. Measured by the bank's total assets in 2016 the Bank im Bistum Essen makes place 21 on the list of the largest cooperative banks in Germany.The bank offers the whole range of services of a universal bank.

The Simon Hirschland Bank was founded in 1841 in Essen, Germany, by Simon Hirschland (1807-1885), who started his business as a merchant, and over the years began to lend money. The banking business began in 1841; Simon Hirschland also traded in wool, meat, pelts, nails, copper, lead and cattle, from 1 Weber Street. Simon Hirschland's son, Issac Hirschland (1845-1912), took over operation of the bank on his father’s death, and his sons, Dr. Georg Hirschland (1885-1942) and Kurt Hirschland (1882-1957) became the bank’s principles after Issac. The bank grew into an international investment bank, with concerns as far away as South America and the United States.In 1938, the Simon Hirschland bank was forcibly sold ("Aryanized") and the family members who were involved in the bank fled to and settled in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. Though the family members who arrived in the United States arrived with only their suitcases, the family has flourished, with many bankers, doctors, lawyers, and professionals in many fields.The bank building still exists as a department store on Lindenalle, near the renamed Hirschlandplatz, in Essen. One of the artworks looted from Kurt Hirschland by the Nazis, a drawing by Vincent Van Gogh called La Mousmé (July-August 1888) was restituted to the family by Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1956.

The RWE Tower in Essen is the highest building in the Ruhr area, and one of the highest buildings in Germany. It is used by RWE AG. As it shows the cultural and industrial change of the region, it is an important landmark in Essen. The skyscraper was designed by Ingenhoven Architects.

The Essen Cathedral Treasury (German: Essener Domschatz) is one of the most significant collections of religious artworks in Germany. A great number of items of treasure are accessible to the public in the treasury chamber of Essen Minster. The cathedral chapter manages the treasury chamber, not as a museum as in some places, but as the place in which liturgical implements and objects are kept, which continued to be used to this day in the service of God, so far as their conservation requirements allow.

Grillo-Theater is a theatre in Essen, Germany. Named after the industrialist Friedrich Grillo, who made the building possible, it opened on 16 September 1892 with Lessing's drama Minna von Barnhelm. The building was badly damaged in World War II; it was restored with a much simpler façade and re-opened in 1950 with Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Notable directors included Erwin Piscator, Jean-Louis Barrault, Heinz Dietrich Kenter, Hansgünther Heyme. Caspar Neher became head of design in 1927 and designed here eight operas and 11 plays. In 1988, the role of the Grillo-Theater as Essen's major stage venue was taken by the newly constructed Aalto Theatre which also opened with Die Meistersinger. Following a major reconstruction by the architect Werner Ruhnau and a reduction of the auditorium from 670 to 400 seats, the Grillo-Theater became a flexible smaller venue; it re-opened in September 1990 with Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

National-Bank AG (own spelling: NATIONAL-BANK) is one of the medium-sized regional banks in Germany. With around 600 employees, it provides services for approximately 100,000 retail clients, freelancers, corporate clients and institutional investors with a focus on medium-sized companies.

The Golden Madonna of Essen is a sculpture of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. It is a wooden core covered with sheets of thin gold leaf. The piece is part of the treasury of Essen Cathedral, formerly the church of Essen Abbey, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and is kept on display at the cathedral. Dated around the year 980, it is both the oldest known sculpture of the Madonna and the oldest free-standing medieval sculpture north of the Alps, and is also one of the few major works of art to survive from Ottonian times. To this day it remains an object of veneration and symbol of identity for the population of the Ruhr Area. It is the only full-length survival from what appears to have been a common form of statue among the wealthiest churches and abbeys of 10th and 11th century Northern Europe; some of these were life-size, especially figures of the Crucifixion.

The Diocese of Essen is a bishopric of the Catholic Church in Germany, founded on 1 January 1958. The Bishop of Essen is seated in Essen Cathedral (Essener Dom or Essener Münster), once the church of Essen Abbey, and over one thousand years old. The diocese contains about one million Catholics in the heavily urbanized and industrial Ruhr Area.

Essen Minster (German: Essener Münster), since 1958 also Essen Cathedral (Essener Dom) is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Essen, the "Diocese of the Ruhr", founded in 1958. The church, dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian and the Blessed Virgin Mary, stands on the Burgplatz in the centre of the city of Essen, Germany. The minster was formerly the collegiate church of Essen Abbey, founded in about 845 by Altfrid, Bishop of Hildesheim, around which the city of Essen grew up. The present building, which was reconstructed after its destruction in World War II, is a Gothic hall church, built after 1275 in light-coloured sandstone. The octagonal westwork and the crypt are survivors of the Ottonian pre-Romanesque building that once stood here. The separate Church of St. Johann Baptist stands at the west end of the minster, connected to the westwork by a short atrium – it was formerly the parish church of the abbey's subjects. To the north of the minster is a cloister that once served the abbey. Essen Minster is noted for its treasury (Domschatz), which among other treasures contains the Golden Madonna, the oldest fully sculptural figure of Mary north of the Alps.

The Catholic parish church of St. Johann Baptist is a Gothic hall church in Essen, dedicated to John the Baptist, which stands on Kettwiger Straße, the main street of Essen, in front of Essen Minster, to which it is connected. On account of its position and the fact that its spire towers over the Minster, visitors often mistake it for part of the Minster.