The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson bridge over the Loire, which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the President of the United States from 1913 to 1921.
A force of 25,000 American soldiers arrived in 1917, setting up textile factories for the manufacture of uniforms, repair shops for military equipment, munitions dumps, an army post office and an American military hospital at Augustins.
The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson bridge over the Loire, which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the President of the United States from 1913 to 1921.
Some men married women from Tours. ====Inter-war years==== In 1920, the city was host to the Congress of Tours, which saw the creation of the French Communist Party. ====Second World War==== Tours was also marked by the Second World War.
The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson bridge over the Loire, which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the President of the United States from 1913 to 1921.
Capital of loyalty during the French Wars of Religion and city of retreat in June 1940 which will lead it to be partly destroyed. The White and Blue city keeps nevertheless a historical center registered in the UNESCO and city of art and history with its Vieux-Tours, a remarkable patrimonial site.
In 1940 the city suffered massive destruction, and for four years it was a city of military camps and fortifications.
From 10 to 13 June 1940, Tours was the temporary seat of the French government before its move to Bordeaux.
More heavy air raids by Allied forces devastated the area around the railway station in 1944, causing several hundred deaths. ====Post-war developments==== A plan for the rebuilding of the downtown area drawn up by the local architect Camille Lefèvre was adopted even before the end of the war.
Pierre Patout succeeded Lefèvre as the architect in charge of rebuilding in 1945.
In the 1970s, Jean Royer also extended the city to the south by diverting the course of the River Cher to create the districts of Rives du Cher and des Fontaines; at the time, this was one of the largest urban developments in Europe.
In 1970, the François Rabelais University was founded; this is centred on the bank of the Loire in the downtown area, and not – as it was then the current practice – in a campus in the suburbs.
This project incurred debts although it did, at least, make Tours one of France's principal conference centres. Jean Germain, a member of the Socialist Party, became Mayor in 1995 and made debt reduction his priority.
In 2017, the commune of Tours had 135,787 inhabitants; the population of the whole metropolitan area was 495,379. Tours stands on the lower reaches of the Loire river, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast.
The historic city that is nicknamed "Le Petit Paris" and its region by its history and culture, has always been a land of birth or host to many personalities, international sporting events, university city with more than 30,000 students in 2019.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05