Erected in 1660, the Burgtor was originally one of the gates in the fortifications surrounding the city of Vienna and was the site of fierce fighting during the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. After the gate was blown up by Napoleon’s soldiers in 1809 it took fifteen years for the military to rebuild it. The foundation stone was laid in the presence of Emperor Franz I in 1821. The opening ceremony took place on 16 October 1824, the eleventh anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, the so-called ‘Battle of the Peoples’, at which the joint forces of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden defeated Napoleon in a ‘heroic fight’.
