Duisburg an industrial center. Big industrial companies such as iron and steel producing firms (Thyssen and Krupp) influenced the development of the city within the Prussian Rhine Province. Large housing areas near production sites were being built as workers and their families moved in.
� 1823 a district ("Landkreis") Duisburg is established including the cities of Essen and M�lheim an der Ruhr.
� 1824 construction of the sulfuric acid factory Fr. W. Curtius. Beginning of the industry age in Duisburg.
� 1828 Franz Haniel builds a dockyard for steamships
� 1846 railway line to D�sseldorf
� 1847 railway line via Dortmund to Minden
� 1873 Duisburg becomes an independent city borough.
� 1904 Birth of the 100,000th resident (Ernst R. Straube)
� 1921 French Infantry occupy the city on 8 March to secure war reparation payments incurred during World War I.
� 1929 The city of Hamborn and Duisburg are joined together. The new city is given the name of Duisburg-Hamborn.
� 1935 Duisburg-Hamborn is renamed Duisburg.
� 1938 (November) The Nazis destroy the city's synagogue.
A major logistical centre in the Ruhr and location of chemical, steel and iron industries, Duisburg was a primary target of Allied bombers. As such, it is considered by some historians to be the single most heavily bombed German city by the Allies during World War II, with industrial areas and residential blocks targeted by Allied incendiary bombs.
On the night of 12�13 June 1941, British bombers dropped a total of 445 tons of bombs in and around Duisburg. As part of the Battle of the Ruhr, another British raid of 577 bombers destroyed the old city between 12�13 May 1943 with 1,599 tons of bombs. During the bombing raids,
