Travel through our timeline of major events in Germany's history.

East Germans flood through the dismantled Berlin Wall on November 12, 1989.

1800 B.C. - 400 B.C.:
During the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, Celtic people in the area become skilled metal workers.

936 A.D.:
Otto the Great is elected king of East Francia, which is now Germany.

1024-1125:
The German Empire becomes powerful under kings chosen from the Salian people.

1618-1648:
The Thirty Years' War is fought almost entirely in Germany. The empire is divided into small principalities.

1685:
Baroque composers George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are born.

1857:
The Grimm Brothers write Rapunzel, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin and many other well-known fairy tales.

1864-1871:
Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck unifies Germany in a series of wars. In 1871, King Wilhelm I of Prussia is named kaiser, or emperor, of Germany.

1914-1918:
Germany goes to war against Russia and France. The conflict escalates into World War I. Germany is defeated.

1933:
Adolf Hitler, an Austrian, takes power. Hitler and the Nazi party begin a reign of terror.

1939-1945:
Germany invades Poland, marking the beginning of World War II. The U.S. and its allies defeat Germany, Italy and Japan.

1949:
Germany is divided into the Federal Republic of Germany, in the west, and the Communist German Democratic Republic, in the east.

1989-1991:
The Berlin Wall, separating East and West Germany, is torn down. A unified Germany is formed with Berlin as the capital.

1999:
Officials announce plans to create a $5.2 billion fund to pay the more than 1 million slave laborers forced to work under Nazi rule.

May 2005:
Germany opens its first official Holocaust memorial dedicated to the nearly 6 million Jews that were killed between 1933 and 1945.

November 2005:
Germany elects Angela Merkel as its first female chancellor.