The Root-
Ciro's official name is al-Qāhirah, meaning 'the Vanquisher' or 'the Conqueror', supposedly due to the fact that the planet Mars was rising at the time when the city was founded.
History and Early Settlers-
The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis that was the old capital of Egypt, has long been a focal point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location- just upstream from the Nile Delta.
The Romans established a fortress town along the east bank of the Nile. This fortress, known as Babylon, was the nucleus of the Roman Empire and then the Byzantine city. It is the oldest structure in the city today.
Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD, the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area that became known as al-Fustat.
In 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat, which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar.
A rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement became the seat of government. This was al-Qatta'i.
Foundation-
In 968, the Fatimids were led by general Jawhar al-Siqilli to establish a new capital for the Fatimid dynasty .Egypt was conquered from their base in Ifriqiya and a new fortified city- northeast of Fustat- was established. It took four years to build the city, which was to serve as the new capital of the Caliphate. During that time, Jawhar also commissioned the construction of the al-Azhar Mosque by order of the Caliph, which developed into the third-oldest university in the world. Cairo eventually became a centre of learning with the library of Cairo containing thousands of books. When Caliph al-Mu'izz li Din Allah arrived from the old Fatimid capital of Mahdia in Tunisia in 973, he gave the city its present name, al-Qāhiratu (The Victorious).
Historical sites and landmarks-
Tahrir Square: Tahrir Square was founded during the mid 19th century with the establishment of modern downtown Cairo. It was first named Ismailia Square after the 19th-century ruler Khedive Ismail who commissioned the new downtown district's 'Paris on the Nile' design. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, the square became widely known as Tahrir (Liberation) Square. The square witnessed several major protests over the years. However, the most notable event in the square was the 2011 Egyptian Revolution against the former president Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptian Museum: The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum, is a home to the most extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities in the world. It has 1,36,000 items on display. Among its most famous collections on display are the finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Citadel of Cairo: The Citadel is a fortified enclosure begun by Salah al-Din in 1176 AD on an outcrop of the Muqattam Hills as part of a large defensive system to protect both Cairo to the north and Fustat to the southwest.