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Budapest has a rich and colourful history which began well before the Ottoman Empire took control in 1541 after beginning the campaign for control fifteen years earlier.
Attila the Hun and the Monguls are just two parts of Budapest's history before then. The Ottomans stayed for nearly 150 years during which time the Christian population gradually disappeared, replaced by the Muslim faith.
The fall of the Ottomans at the hands of the Hapsburgs was a lengthy process which was finally concluded at the end of the seventeenth century, and that change resulted in the growth of Catholicism which meant two thirds of its population embraced the Church of Rome.
Modern day Budapest though still had many trials to overcome before reaching real independence. The First World War saw the collapse of the Austrian Hungarian Empire and Hungary finally found independence, but in a territory much smaller than anticipated, and with a third of Hungarians living outside its boundaries.
The Second World War brought no more joy as the inhabitants found themselves within the Eastern bloc, under the control of the USSR. There were famous attempts to achieve freedom once more, most notably in 1956 when huge numbers of Soviet forces with innumerable tanks invaded the city to quell revolution.
It was only really recently that the break up of the Soviet Bloc assured the city of the real ability to express itself as an independent capital of an independent country.
Budapest has all the trappings of a twenty first century capital city. Its inhabitants, predominantly native Hungarians are a mixture of religions, Catholics being the predominant but far less though than a century ago. There is a large protestant population and Budapest boasts the largest Jewish synagogue in Europe and the second largest still in use in the World, even though the population as a proportion of the whole has dwindled from almost a fifth to less than one per cent. The occupation by the Nazis in the Second World War saw almost half of the then 120,000 Jewish population killed and with the memory of that, there was little reason for the Jewish staying in post war Budapest and many took the opportunity to leave.
Reconstruction of the badly damaged city took place over a period of time, largely through the sixties although real prosperity was slow in coming.
The sights of Budapest make it a city that attracts many tourists. Those tourists see a relaxed atmosphere, a population in the latest fashion and gabor shoes, gabor colours and the caf and restaurant culture transports the tourist to scenes found in any modern city.
The centre of the city is home to financial and service industries with manufacturing and heavy industry confined to the suburbs. The city centre workers display the vibrancy of the Hungarians, fashion conscious, suits and dresses in the latest fashion, gabor shoes, gabor colour, and very much twenty first century.
