Old Tallinn
to settle. Sometime about 1050 A.D. a fortress was built atop the hill, the first of
many. In 1219 the Danes showed up as part of the Northern Crusade to
subjugate the Baltics and convert the local pagans to Christianity whether they
wanted to or not.
The Danes improved the fortifications and expanded the town, which became
part of the Hanseatic League, a trading organization of a hundred northern cities.
The Danes sold Tallinn to the Livonan Order, a branch of the Teutonic Knights,
in 1346. The Swedes came next in 1561. Tallinn weathered plague and the Great
Northern War and became part of Russia in 1710. In 1918, Estonia declared
independence from Russia and fought a bitter war against Bolshevik Russia.
Independence didn’t last long, however, and the fledgling nation fell first to the
Nazis and then the Soviets during World War II.
Despite all this conquering, Tallinn’s historic core has survived remarkably
intact
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