Luxembourg historical timeline

History

Luxembourg's history is the history of a fortress that everyone wanted and a state that survived by having it pulled down. What a visitor sees -- the casemates, the castles, the American cemetery, the EU court -- is the record of that bargain.

Chronology

963 Siegfried, Count of the Ardennes, acquires the Bock rock from St Maximin's Abbey in Trier and builds Lucilinburhuc; a town grows around it, and in 987 five altars are consecrated in what is now St Michael's.
1354 Charles IV raises the county to a duchy under his half-brother Wenceslaus; the House of Luxembourg has already supplied the Holy Roman Empire with emperors.
1477 After a brief Burgundian interlude the duchy passes to the Habsburgs, and after the Eighty Years' War to the Spanish and then, in 1713, the Austrian Netherlands; the first partition takes land in 1658, and Vauban strengthens the fortress under French rule.
1815 The Congress of Vienna makes Luxembourg a grand duchy in personal union with the Netherlands and partitions it a second time; the Treaty of London of 1839 partitions it a third time and establishes its formal independence.
1867 The Luxembourg Crisis ends with the second Treaty of London: perpetual independence and neutrality, the fortress walls pulled down and the Prussian garrison withdrawn; the casemates survive underground.
1890 The personal union with the Netherlands ends and a separate ruling house begins.
1914 Germany occupies Luxembourg from 1914 to 1918, despite the perpetual neutrality guaranteed by the second Treaty of London in 1867. The occupation was the first demonstration that the 1867 settlement protected the country on paper only, and it is the reason the question of neutrality was live again in 1940 and settled differently after 1945.
1940 Germany occupies Luxembourg again until 1944; the Ardennes offensive of 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945 is fought across the north, Patton makes the capital his headquarters, and the American cemetery at Hamm is begun on 29 December 1944.
1942 On 30 August 1942 the Gauleiter announces that all Luxembourger males born between 1920 and 1927 are to be conscripted into the Wehrmacht. Within hours a general strike is organised; it begins on 31 August in the northern Ardennes town of Wiltz, led by local officials, and paralyses the country. The occupying authorities responded by sentencing 21 strikers to death. This is the event Luxembourg's national memory of the occupation is built on, and it started in a small Ardennes town rather than in the capital -- which is why the north of the country, fought over again in the Ardennes offensive two years later, carries more of the war's commemoration than its size suggests.
1957 A founding member of the European Economic Community, as of NATO, the UN, the OECD and the Benelux; the Court of Justice of the EU sits in the capital.
1985 The Schengen agreement is signed in Luxembourg's Moselle village of Schengen in 1985. The village -- 704 people in 2025, on the western bank of the Moselle, its commune boundary taking in the tripoint where Luxembourg, Germany and France meet -- gave its name to the arrangement that removed the borders. The commune renamed itself Schengen in 2006 to take advantage of the recognition, and the European Museum opened there on 13 June 2010, 25 years after the signing.
1994 The old quarters and fortifications of Luxembourg City are inscribed as World Heritage; on 1 March 2020 the country becomes the first to make all public transport free, and by 2023 the IMF ranks it the richest in the world per head.

What survived, and how

The casemates survived because the treaty that demolished the fortress could not demolish tunnels cut into rock; they are the World Heritage site. The castles survived as ruins until the state bought and rebuilt them, Vianden most completely. The language survived because the Luxembourgers used it at home and their neighbours' languages for everything else, which is still the arrangement.

What did not survive is the walls: a city that was the Gibraltar of the North is now a park with a court in it.

Verified against Wikipedia, September 2026.

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Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — With an area of 2586 km2, Luxembourg is Europe's seventh-smallest country. In 2026, it had a population of 693,916, which makes it one of the…, From the French Empire and elevation to Grand Duchy of Luxembourg 9 June 1815 | Independence in personal Union with the Netherlands (Treaty of London) 19…, in 1354, Charles IV elevated it to the status of a duchy, The historic city of Luxembourg was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 due to the exceptional preservation of its vast fortifications and…, In 2011, according to the IMF, Luxembourg was the world's second-richest country ... by 2023 it was ranked first, In 2020, Luxembourg became the first country in the world to provide free public transport at a national scale, the history of Luxembourg proper is considered to begin in 963, After a brief period of Burgundian rule, the country passed to the Habsburgs in 1477. After the Eighty Years' War, Luxembourg became a part of the Southern…, the second Treaty of London which guaranteed the perpetual independence and neutrality of the state. The fortress walls were pulled down and the Prussian…, a separate ruling house in 1890. It was occupied by Germany from 1914 until 1918 and again from 1940 until 1944, During this period of French rule, the defences of the fortress were strengthened by the famous siege engineer Vauban., Warring did not stop until the Treaty of London was signed in 1867, calling for the demolition of the fortifications. Ruins of the old castle and the vast…, one of the largest fortified castles west of the Rhine. With origins dating from the fourth century as a Roman outpost and the 10th century, the more…, after the signing of the Schengen Agreement there in 1985. The town of Schengen itself had a population of 704 as of 2025., a Second World War American military war grave cemetery, located in Hamm, Luxembourg. The cemetery, containing 5,074 American war dead, covers 50.5 acre and…, established on 29 December 1944 ... while Allied Forces were containing the German Ardennes offensive in the winter of 1944/1945. General George S. Patton…, In 2010 ... the Grand Duchy still welcomed over 900,000 visitors a year who spend an average of 2.5 nights, a developed economy largely dependent on the banking, steel, and industrial sectors. Citizens of Luxembourg enjoy the highest per capita gross domestic…, On 30 August 1942 Gustav Simon announced that all Luxembourger males born between 1920 and 1927 were to be conscripted into the Wehrmacht; a general strike was organised within hours, began on 31 August 1942 in the northern Ardennes town of Wiltz led by local town officials, paralysed the country, and the occupying German authorities responded by sentencing 21 strikers to death, Schengen is a wine-making village and commune in far south-eastern Luxembourg on the western bank of the Moselle whose commune border includes the tripoint where the borders of Germany, France and Luxembourg meet; the town itself had a population of 704 as of 2025, The name of the commune was changed in 2006 to take advantage of Schengen's name recognition after the signing of the Schengen Agreement there in 1985, and the European Museum opened on 13 June 2010, 25 years after the signing (September 2026).