Why do you love Sibiu? Is it one of your favourite destinations in the country? For us it is definitely among the favourites, and we would choose it any time to admire the imposing buildings, the medieval look, its fascinating history and the restaurants that take us on real culinary journeys. Year after year it attracts an impressive number of tourists, both Romanian and foreign, even during this pandemic period. One example is the International Theatre Festival, which ran for 10 days, with 2,000 artists from 38 countries, 600 events and 100 online performances. The number of spectators was just as impressive.
Here are some moments in history that took place in Sibiu and kept the former European capital in the spotlight:
- The first documented hospital in the country, in 1292
- The first library mentioned on the territory of Romania, in 1330
- The first documented school in the country, in 1380
- The first pharmacy opened in the country, in 1494
- In 1525, the first printing house in Transylvania is documented, the second oldest on the territory of Romania
- The first book in Romanian in Transylvania was printed in 1544. Unfortunately, this first edition of the book burned in a fire. A second version appeared in 1562;
- In 1555, Conrad Haas, an Austrian inventor and forerunner of rocket flight, experimented with the world’s first multi-stage rocket
- Curious when and where the first calendar in Romania appeared? Sibiu, 1612
- In 1671 the first methane gas was discovered, around the city of Sibiu
- The first brewery in Romania, in 1717
- The first newspaper published in Transylvania, in 1778
- The chemist Franz Joseph Müller discovered the chemical element tellurium, in 1782
- The first theatre building opened in Romania, in 1788
- The first museum in Romania and South-Eastern Europe, the Brukenthal Museum, opened in 1817
- The Bridge of Lies is the first cast-iron bridge in Romania, built in 1859
- In 1863 the first hospital for nervous diseases opened, a first in South-Eastern Europe
- Albina Bank is the first bank with entirely Romanian capital, opened in 1872
- The first mountain resort in Romania is Păltiniș, 1894
- The first city in Transylvania lit by electric current, in 1897
- The first encyclopaedia in Romania was published, in 1898
- The first city in Transylvania to introduce an electric public transport vehicle without rails, the ancestor of the trolleybus
- The first zoo opened, in 1921
- In the same year, the first handball team was founded and the first handball match in Romania took place
- In 1944 “Junii Sibiului”, the first folk ensemble in our country, was founded
- The first museum of universal ethnography in Romania opened in 1993. The “Franz Binder” Museum houses a mummy with a sarcophagus over 2,000 years old.
- And last but not least, in 2007 the city of Sibiu was named European Capital of Culture, the first city in South-Eastern Europe to receive this distinction.
