Paderborn was founded as a bishopric by Charlemagne in 795. In 799 Pope Leo III fled his enemies in Rome and reached Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne. Charlemagne reinstated Leo in Rome in 800 and was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by Leo in return.
The bishop of Paderborn became a Prince of the Empire in 1100. The city was taken by Prussia in 1802, then by the French vassal state Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813 and then returned to Prussia.
The tree Irminsul was supposedly located near Paderborn.
Paderborn was the seat of the Bishopric of Paderborn; today it is seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop.
St. Liborius is commemorated in Paderborn every year in July with the Liborifest. He is the patron of Paderborn, to which his relics were transferred in 836.
During World War II, Paderborn was comprehensively bombed by allied aircraft in 1944 and 1945 (85% destruction) and seized by the US 3rd Armored Division during a pitched battle 31 March - 1 April 1945, in which tanks and flamethrowers were used during combined mechanized-infantry assaults against the city's southwestern, southern and southeastern approaches
