Description & Facts: Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria. The College town is home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban districts and also home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is currently the third-largest city in Bavaria with more than 264,000 citizens. The name of the city dated from the Roman settlement Augusta Vindelicorum. The city was founded by the Roman emperor Augustus 15 BC as a castra. Therefore the "Fuggerstadt" is the second oldest city in Germany after Trier. The city was founded in 15 BC in the reign of Roman emperor Augustus as a garrison called Augusta Vindelicorum. Around 120 AD Augsburg became the capital of the Roman province Raetia. It was laid to waste by the Huns in the fifth century, by Charlemagne in the eighth, and by Welf of Bavaria in the eleventh; it rose each time only to greater prosperity. It became an Imperial Free City on March 9, 1276. Given its strategic location on the trade routes to Italy, it became a major trading centre. It produced large quantities of woven goods, cloth and textiles, and was the base for the Fugger banking empire. The Fuggerei, part of the city devoted to housing for the needy citizens of Augsburg, was founded in 1516 and is still in use today. In 1530 the Augsburg Confession was presented to the Holy Roman Emperor at the Diet of Augsburg. Following the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, after which the rights of religious minorities in imperial cities were to be protected, a mixed Catholic-Protestant city council presided over a majority Protestant population; see Paritatische Reichsstadt. Religious peace in the city was largely maintained despite increasing confessional tensions until the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). In 1629, Ferdinand II issued the Edict of Restitution, which restored the legal situation of 1552 and thereby curtailed the rights of local Protestants. This persisted until April 1632, when the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus took the city without resistance. Just over two years later, the Swedish army was routed at nearby Nordlingen, and by October 1634 Catholic troops had surrounded Augsburg. The Swedish garrison refused to surrender and a disastrous siege ensued through the winter of 1634/35, during which thousands died of hunger and disease. These difficulties, together with the discovery of America, and of the route to India by the Cape, conspired to destroy the town's prosperity. In 1806, when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, Augsburg lost its independence to become part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Augsburg became an administrative capital, first in 1817 of the Oberdonaukreis, then in 1837 of the district Swabia and Neuburg. In the 19th century, the city increased considerably in industrial importance. It contained large cotton and woollen mills, machine shops, and manufacturers of acetylene gas, paper, chemicals, jewellery, and leather. Out of one acetylene gas plant the company KUKA was founded (1898) as Keller und Knappich Augsburg, today one of the leading companies for industrial robots. Also it gave birth to the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg (Later to merge with Maschinenfabrik Nuernberg and become Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nuernberg or MAN AG)machine factory where Rudolf Diesel pioneered commercial production of his Diesel engine. During World War II, various sub-camps of the Dachau concentration camp were located in the city. They supplied slave labour to local industry. In 1941 Rudolf Hess took off from a local airport and flew to Scotland to meet the Duke of Hamilton and attempt to mediate the end of the European front of World War II and join sides for the upcoming Russian Campaign. In 1945 elements of the U.S. Army occupied the heavily damaged city. An American military presence in the city started with the 11th Airborne Division, moving to the 24th Infantry Division, US Army Seventh Corps Artillery, and, ending with the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade, which left the area in 1998.