Breslau
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Breslau. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
bres'lou, the second city of Prussia. It is situated in the far southeast corner on the upper waters of the Oder. It is the capital city of Prussian Silesia. It was wrested from Maria Theresa by Frederick the Great in 1741. The modern city has a population of nearly half a million and carries on an extensive trade in cloth, timber, coal, glass, and grain. Wool fairs are held in June and October. The manufactures include engines, cars, musical instruments, stained glass, cigars, beer, and textiles. The old wall has been leveled to make room for pleasant, shady promenades and drives. The moat has been converted into a series of ponds now enlivened with swans. A zoological garden and a botanical garden , museums of art and antiquities, a university library of 350,000 books, including specimens of the earliest printing, a fine old city hall, several churches with stained glass, a market place, numerous statues, and quaint old houses where emperors, kings, poets, and artists have lodged are enough to interest the tourist for weeks. See Germany ; Hanseatic League
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city of Prussia, capital of the province of Silesia, at the confluence of the Ohlau with the Oder, 190 miles S. E. of Berlin, comprising various suburbs, some of them built on islands of the Oder, and united to the body of the town by numerous bridges. It is the center of a very extensive commerce. The fair held here in June for the sale of wool is the greatest of its kind in Germany. Breslau prior to the World War was one of the most animated and prosperous cities in Prussia. Breslau was taken from Austria by Frederick the Great. Pop. about 514,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's in 1910 and Collier's in 1921 both describe a prosperous Prussian city of half a million Germans, capital of Silesia, famous for its June wool fair. In the closing months of the Second World War Breslau was declared a fortress and besieged, surrendering only in May 1945 after months of fighting that destroyed much of the city; under the postwar settlement it passed to Poland and is now Wrocław. Almost the entire German population was expelled and replaced by Poles, many of them themselves expelled from Lwów (now Lviv) in the east. The old wall turned into promenades, the moat with its swans, the university library and the Gothic town hall largely survive or have been rebuilt in a Polish city of roughly 640,000 that is one of the country's main economic and cultural centres.
Written for this edition, 2026.