View

end of 15th c. Mikołaj Kucieński funds a hospital for the poor under the invocation of St. Spirit and St. Leonard. There is a parish school in the city.
1504 the city obtains the right to organize the fair and to have a toll-keeper's chambe , as well as another municipal privilege.
1513 the first information about the Jews in Kutno comes from King Zygmunt Stary's document. It lists three merchants from Kutno: Moshe, Salomon (Szlomo), and Lewek. In this document, the king guarantees them an annual moratorium on debt repayment.
15th-16th c. during this period, the Kucieński estate, which belonged to the owners of the town, developed intensively. The number of inhabitants increases, trade, and local crafts are strengthened.
1662 King Jan Kazimierz grants privileges to the shoemakers, blacksmiths and carpenters guilds. Andrzej Władysław Kucieński, the castellan of Kruszwica, lifts the city from its fall after The Deluge.
1701 the Kucieński family sells the town to the Zamoyski family.
1748 the route of the Saxon post office was changed (previously it bypassed Wrocław), which now ran through Poznań, Kargowa, and Kutno to Warsaw and was entrusted with the service of a regiment of Uhlans. King August III's postal palace was built in Kutno for usage during journeys between Dresden and Warsaw.
1753 an enormous fire in the city causes significant losses, completing the destruction caused at the beginning of the 18th century by numerous marches of Swedish, Saxon, Russian and Polish troops.
1766 obtaining a new location privilege for Kutno by the Grand Chancellor of the Crown Andrzej Zamoyski, owner of the city, from King Stanisław August Poniatowski. This stimulates the development of the city, which also receives a new crest. Internal relations are sorted out, and regulatory work in the field of town planning has commenced.
1767 residents' villein services are rent-charged, municipal self-government is given more freedom and Jewish citizens' status in law is established.
1774 another fire consumes the city. During reconstruction townspeople build brick houses, roofed with tiles.
1775 Stanisław Kostka Gadomski becomes owner of the city. Kutno expands and becomes one of the biggest municipal centers in central Poland after Piotrków and Łowicz. At that time the new post route from Warsaw to Poznań and Wschowa, running through Kutno, has a major significance for the city's economy and employment structure. New craftsmen come to the city and trade develops. Numerous Jewish population settle down and receive a number of rights and care from Stanisław Gadomski.
1791 Walenty Rzętkowski buys the land of Kutno. He is the cup-bearer of Gostynin and member of parliament. During his times there are 668 Catholics, 63 Lutherans and 1,272 Jews in the city.
1793 after the second partitioning of Poland Kutno is ruled by the Prussians again and becomes a part of new province called Southern Prussia. At the same time new authorities begin a period of transformations of the existing social and economic structure. Prussian policy consistently aim at expansion of their own fiscal and administrative systems, controlling all aspects of life in the annexed territory. The new situation is reluctantly accepted by residents of the city; the self-government is constrained - the mayor and members of municipal council are appointed by the government. The mayor becomes a state official, representing the conquerors' interests.
1807 emperor Napoleon stops in Kutno on his way to Tylża and is hosted by the owner of Kutno. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw is formed under the Tylża treaty. A bourgeoisie model of society and state is imposed on the Duchy by Napoleonian constitution. The notion of a national citizen come up for the first time in Polish land, however, political rights are so restrictively determined by property and education that there are only 18 citizens with a right to be elected in Kutno.
1808 a large fire destroys 180 houses in Kutno. The city's population numbered 2,105 permanent residents.
1809 general Jan Henryk Dąbrowski and his staff resided in Kutno. The beginning of a new century was particularly difficult for citizens. Polish, French and Russian soldiers frequently marched past the city. Townspeople were burdened with excessive taxes and economy declined. Such predicaments led to first determined struggles for independence (1806).
1815 the Kingdom of Poland, including Kutno, is formed from the divided Duchy of Warsaw.
1819 Russian troops returning from France march through the city.
1820 Antoni Gliszczyński brings German clothiers to Kutno. An evangelical parish was organized in the city and provided for by the city's owner.
1823 municipal authorities buy first 10 reverberatory lanterns to light up the city.
1827 there are 4,620 inhabitants in Kutno. For comparison, Łęczyca have 1,500 and Łódź 400 residents in the times of Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
1830 residents of Kutno and the surrounding area take active part in the November Uprising. The 2nd Regiment of Mazovians is organized in city and, thanks to citizens' dedication, soon achieves combat readiness. As a result, in February 1831 Regiment leaves Kutno for Warsaw. Many representatives of local nobility served in the regiment as officers, which caused much repression after the fall of uprising. Some of them lost their estates and emigrated, like the Świętosławski brothers from the nearby Łęki Kościelne, who later became energetic activists in exile, and Franciszek Trzciński from Sklęczki (now a district of the city), a member of parliament who organized a secret committee with Joachim Lelewel just before the defeat. The committee helped patriotic activists emigrate to France. The insurrectionary government included the owner of Kutno, Antoni Gliszyński who performed the function of minister of internal affairs and police.
1833 Karol Götz opens the fifth cake shop in Kutno. There is a billiard pool which becomes the biggest attraction in the city.
1844 county hospital is opened for public in Kutno. The hospital was founded by a Care Council of Charitable Institutions, presided by Feliks Mniewski, then the owner of Kutno properties.
1862 the Warsaw-Bydgoszcz railway line, going through Kutno, is an important constituent of the city's economic development, being crucial for the growing sugar industry and agricultural trade. Kutno became a leading center of corn trade in the whole of left-bank region of Mazowsze.
1863 on January 22 at night the January Uprising broken out. The provisional government left Warsaw and moved to Kutno. Some members of the government: Rev. Karol Mikoszowski, Józef Kajetan Jankowski and Jan Maykowski stayed in Kutno for five days, from January 23 until 27, 1863. In the initial period of the uprising there operated four spontaneous partisan troops, called parties in the counties of Łęczyca and Gostynin.
1866 a czar's act annulled the hereditary and dominion rights in cities. Intensive urban development follows in Kutno. Population grows in a way resembling that in the Łódź industrial center. In 1890 Kutno was one of 30 municipal centers in the Kingdom of Poland with population over 10,000.
1881 there are 10 establishments in the city, called "factories" (including a mill with bakery, a farm machines factory, an oil mill, a vinegar factory and mead brewery).
1905-1907 the echoes of revolution reach the city. Strikes, mainly on economic grounds, escalated just as arrests and czarist terror.
1914-1918 the period of World War I. Russians were evacuated from Kutno. On people's initiative a citizens' committee is constituted which is to replace the non-existent administrative authorities. When German soldiers entered the city all significant functions were taken over by Germans.
1918 Polish Military Organization and residents of Kutno took active part in disarmament of German troops and establishment of an independent state.
1919-1939 the county of Kutno was contained in the administrative limits of the Warsaw Province, then - from April 1939 - becomes a part of the Łódź Province. In 1926 the mayor participates in the 3rd Congress of International Union of Cities, as in the 1920's Kutno joined the Polish Union of Cities.
1939-1945 World War II. In the early days of September 1939 a bloody battle was fought at Kutno, called the "battle of the Bzura". During the occupation Germans carried on the policy of oppression and extermination of Polish and Jewish population. In 1940 a ghetto was formed in the city where nearly 8,000 Jews were kept until March 1942 when the liquidation began. The Jews of Kutno were deported and murdered at Chełmno on the Ner River. Polish Home Army operates actively in the region.
1945-1975 the town is a seat of county authorities within the Province of Łódź.
1975-1998 Kutno becomes the second largest city of the Province of Płock. Political transformations, begun in 1989, give base for economic reconstruction and the city became a center of trade, industries, culture and education.
1999 as a result of new administrative division Kutno returns to the Province of Łódź.

Important dates

Important dates