enturies, Zagreb was badly devastated by fire and the plague. In 1776, the royal council (government) moved from Vara�din to Zagreb and during the reign of Joseph II Zagreb became the headquarters of the Vara�din and Karlovac general command.
19th to early 20th century
In the 19th century, Zagreb was the centre of the Croatian National Revival and saw the erection of important cultural and historic institutions. In 1850, the town was united under its first mayor - Janko Kamauf.
The first railway line to connect Zagreb with Zidani Most and Sisak was opened in 1862 and in 1863 Zagreb received a gasworks. The Zagreb waterworks was opened in 1878.
After the 1880 Zagreb earthquake, up to the 1914 outbreak of World War I, development flourished and the town received the characteristic layout which it has today. The first horse-drawn tram was used in 1891. The construction of the railway lines enabled the old suburbs to merge gradually into Donji Grad, characterised by a regular block pattern that prevails in Central European cities. This bustling core hosts many imposing buildings, monuments, and parks as well as a multitude of museums, theatres and cinemas. An electric power plant was built in 1907.
Since 1 January 1877, the Gri? cannon is fired daily from the Lotr�?ak Tower on Gri? to mark midday.
The first half of the 20th century saw a considerable expansion of Zagreb. Before World War I, the city expanded and neighbourhoods like Stara Pe�?enica in the east and ?rnomerec in the west were created. After the war, working-class districts such as Trnje emerged between the railway and the Sava, whereas the construction of residential districts on the hills of the southern slopes of Medvednica was completed between the two World Wars.
In the 1920s, the population of Zagreb increased by 70 percent � the largest demographic boom in the history of the town. In 1926, the first radio station in the region began
