Wiesloch

Sister cities

• Amarante
• Fontenay-aux-Roses
• Ząbkowice Śląskie

History

The settlement that is now Wiesloch town centre originated during the expansion of silver mining in the vicinity in the 10th century. The fossil remains of the oldest hummingbird found to date, Eurotrochilus inexpectatus, were found in a clay pit at Frauenweiler. This bird lived during the Early Oligocene (30 mya), when the area had a humid, subtropical climate similar to the northern Caribbean today. In 1077, Emperor Henry IV locked more than 100 of his enemies in the early church at Wizinloch (as the place was then known) on the site of the present Protestant church (Stadtkirche) and burnt the building down. (There is no historical evidence that HRE Henry IV did this. It's either hearsay, or a story conflated with acts perpetrated by other rulers.) There were three battles near Wiesloch, the Battle of Mingolsheim on 27 April 1622 (during the Thirty Years' War), the 1632 Battle of Wiesloch on 16 August 1632, (during the same war) and the 1799 Battle of Wiesloch on 3 December 1799 (during the War of the Second Coalition). Wiesloch was attacked on 28 January 1689 by French troops under Ezéchiel du Mas, Comte de Mélac, during the Nine Years' War, and was almost completely burnt down and destroyed. The city pharmacy in Wiesloch was the first "filling station" in the world, because Bertha Benz stopped there on 5 August 1888, on the first long distance car trip, to refill the tank of her automobile, which her husband Karl Benz had invented. She was supplied with ligroin by the apothecary Willi Ockel. In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially designated an industrial heritage route, following Bertha Benz's route on the world's first long-distance journey by automobile. It is a 194 km signposted circuit from Mannheim via Heidelberg and Wiesloch to…

Geography

Wiesloch is situated partly on the southern foothills of the Odenwald, partly in the Rhine Valley, and partly in the Kraichgau. Five brooks flow through Wiesloch: the Leimbach, the Gauangelbach, the Waldangelbach, the Ochsenbach, and the Maisbach.

Most-observed species

• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  6,066
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,980
• Great Tit

  Parus major Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,880
• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,253
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,720
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,066
• Zoropsid spider

  Zoropsis spinimana (Dufour, 1820) · Arachnida
  3,927
• Gray/Purple Heron

  Ardea cinerea Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  3,849

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2021-06-26
  2 km SE of Hœrdt, France
• M 3.6 — 2014-05-17
  2 km ESE of Pfungstadt, Germany
• M 3.4 — 2010-12-23
  4 km WNW of Mainz, Germany
• M 3.4 — 2010-06-29
  3 km NW of Hochheim am Main, Germany
• M 2.8 — 2008-11-25
  1 km S of Steinmauern, Germany
• M 2.7 — 2008-07-09
  1 km WSW of Dußlingen, Germany