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Welf Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria, tore down the old salt bridge in 1157–8 and erected a new crossing over the Isar River, a short distance to the south. There, the small town of Munichen developed into the royal residence city of Munich. The day on which the Hohenstaufen Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa awarded the town the right to hold a market and mint coins,14 June 1158, is still celebrated as Munich’s birthday.

From 1240 onward, the Wittels-bach dynasty was instrumental in defining the evolution of the city. They graduated from simple dukes to electors and finally to kings. Ludwig I commissioned the erection of Classical public buildings in Munich; Ludwig II built larger-than-life fairy-tale castles; the last member of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Ludwig III, had to flee Bavaria after World War I.

In 1314, Duke Ludwig IV (the Bavarian) was elected king of Germany; in 1328, he was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Following pogroms against the Jews in the 13th and 14th centuries, Duke Albrecht III gave the order to expel all Jews from Upper Bavaria in 1442. Jewish culture did not return to Munich until the 18th century.

In the wake of the Napoleonic redrafting of Europe, the Electorate of Bavaria was elevated to a kingdom, with Munich as the capital and royal residence of the much-enlarged new state. The boundaries of Bavaria at that time were already roughly the same as they are today.

In March of 1849, revolutionary uprisings reached Munich, culminating in the storming of the Zeughaus (the treasury, currently the Stadtmuseum). Having lost the confidence of the court and the bourgeoisie, (in part because of an affair with the notorious dancer Lola Montez), Ludwig I was forced to abdicate.

On the night of 8 November 1918, the socialist Kurt Eisner proclaimed the “Free State of Bavaria” in the Mathäserbräu (today a cinema with a commemorative Eisner column). Eisner became president for a brief period. Following his assassination on 21 February 1919 by a monarchist extremist, Räterepub-liken (Soviet republics) emerged in Munich and other Bavarian cities. These were quickly suppressed by government troops.

Hitler’s party, the NSDAP, grew out of a small cell that began in Munich. As early as 1923, Hitler attempted his first coup (Hitlerputsch ) against the Weimar Republic. As a sign of thanks, Munich was given the title “Capital of the Movement” in 1935, after the Nazis seized power.

In the summer of 1962, harmless buskers were a catalyst for violent clashes between youths and the Munich police forces that lasted for several days. These events inspired the the city and the police to rethink their hardline policy on police intervention.

Munich and environs hosted the 20th Olympic Games in 1972. A terror attack on 5 September against the Olympic team from Israel, resulting in the deaths of nine athletes, overshadowed the Games (see Olympiapark).