20th century: 1990 - 1999

February 1: Following the resignation of Lord Mayor Hans Span and most of the city councillors, the Round Table forms an interim city government under Martin Otto.

April 19: The physicist Ernst Schmutzer is re-elected Rector of the Friedrich Schiller University in accordance with democratic principles.

May 6: The first free local elections after 1946 end with a voter turnout of 73.7% and the following result (in %): CDU/Demokratischer Aufbruch = 34.9; SPD = 21.6; Bündnis 90/Grüne/Neues Forum/Unabhängiger Frauenverband = 15.9; PDS 12.7; Bund Freier Demokraten/FDP = 6.8; DSU = 6.0; Kulturbund = 2.2.

May 22: Peter Röhlinger (FDP) is elected as the new Lord Mayor of Jenaat the constituent meeting of the city council held in the Volkshaus .

May 30: The Universitätssportverein Jena e. V. (USV) is founded. Today's largest multi-sports club in the Free State of Thuringia is the legal successor to the University of Jena Sports Association, which was founded on April 13, 1949.

June 29: The Treuhandanstalt takes over all shares of the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena combine. VEB Carl Zeiss Jena and VEB Jenaer Glaswerk are transformed into Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH (from September 10 as Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH) and Jenaer Glaswerk GmbH.

July 1: With the entry into force of the Economic, Monetary and Social Union, the D-Mark is used as a means of payment in Jena.

October 3: The restoration of German unity is celebrated with an official ceremony in the Volkshaus.

October 25: After 3 years of construction, the department store on Inselplatz - now owned by Horten AG Düsseldorf - is opened (closed in 1996).

January 11: The Collegium Europaeum Jenense is founded at the university as an association of scientists, politicians and artists with the aim of promoting European integration. The founding initiator and, until his death in 2004, chief curator is the physician Ulrich Zwiener.

March 8: The Jena Technology and Innovation Park begins its advisory activities for company founders.

March 20: Following a decision by the city council, a number of honorary citizenships awarded by the city during the GDR era - in particular to regional functionaries of the SED - are revoked.

April 1: Following the recommendations of a special committee set up by the city council, 44 streets in Jena are unnamed or renamed.

April 23: Stadtwerke Jena GmbH is founded with 51% of the shares held by the City of Jena. In 1992, the municipal utility takes over the district heating and gas supply, followed in 1993 by the takeover of the management of the Jena Water and Sewage Association.

June 25: An agreement in principle is negotiated between the Treuhandanstalt, the states of Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia and the Zeiss companies in Jena and Oberkochen. Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH, founded in 1990, becomes Jenoptik GmbH, a state-owned company managed by the former Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Lothar Späth. As the legal successor to the Zeiss combine, Jenoptik is subsequently responsible for structural development in Jena and takes over the optoelectronics, systems engineering and precision manufacturing divisions of the former combine. The areas of Jenoptik Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH not transferred to Jenoptik GmbH are incorporated into the newly formed Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH, with 51% of its shares held by Carl Zeiss AG in Oberkochen and 49% by the Free State of Thuringia. The latter, which are managed by Jenoptik GmbH, are also transferred to Carl Zeiss Oberkochen in 1995.

September: Karl-Heinz Ducke, one of the moderators of the Central Round Table during the Peaceful Revolution, becomes pastor of the Catholic parish of St. John the Baptist in Jena (until 2010; died in 2011).

September: The private Waldorf School Jena opens its doors in Göschwitz with an initial enrolment of 23 pupils - with pupil numbers rising rapidly in the following years. In 2002, the old school building is extended with a new building.

September 2: A Jenaplan School is founded in Jena, based on the school reform ideas of Jena educator Peter Petersen. It starts as a school trial with an elementary school up to year 6 and a kindergarten.

October 1: The "Jena University of Applied Sciences" is founded as a university of applied sciences with the faculties of engineering, business administration and social and health sciences (since 2014 "Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences Jena").

29 November: Theaterhaus Jena - operated since 1992 by an independent gGmbh whose shareholders are the theater's artists and technicians - opens its first season. It quickly becomes nationally known for its experimental productions.

March 24: The last tanks of the former 79th Armored Division of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany leave Jena. The mainly Russian soldiers are bid farewell at the Saalbahnhof.

March: The Karl Marx bust in front of the main university building on Fürstengraben is removed and put in storage after a lengthy, controversial debate.

May 20: The Institute for Physical High Technology (IPHT), which emerged from the Physical-Technical Institute (PTI) of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, begins its activities (since 2007 Institute for Photonic Technologies (IPHT) Jena).

May 25: The Matthias Domaschk Archive Jena (later: Thuringian Archive for Contemporary History "Matthias Domaschk" - ThürAZ), founded in 1991, opens an office in the Neue Forum. The focus of its collecting activities is on records of the opposition and resistance to the SED dictatorship.

June: The conversion of Jena households to natural gas is completed.

June 10: The Ernst Abbe Foundation is established, to which almost all the non-industrial assets of the Carl Zeiss Foundation are transferred. According to its own understanding, it is primarily committed to promoting science in Thuringia.

June 16: The foundation stone is laid for the Saalepark industrial estate.

July/August: The first "Kulturarena", a seven-week international open-air festival, takes place in Jena's city center. Its founder is the head of the cultural department, Norbert Reif.

November: The winners of the first Botho Graef Art Prize of the City of Jena for contemporary visual art are announced.

November 12: The ground-breaking ceremony for the industrial park in Jena-Göschwitz takes place.

November 26: The Max Planck Society opens six new facilities in Jena.

End of the year: After controversial public discussions, an initial reception center for asylum seekers is built in the barracks on the Jenaer Forst, which were vacated by the former Soviet armed forces.

3 April: The structural, personnel and curricular reorganization of the Friedrich Schiller University is provisionally completed with a new constitution.

July 16: The ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the streetcar to the city center takes place in Neulobeda-Ost.

22 October: The foundation stone for the construction of a shopping and service center is laid on a greenfield site on Stadtrodaer Strasse in Neulobeda-Ost. The buildings of the "Lobe-Center", which opened in 1994, are used by various large retail chains in the years that follow, although the buildings often remain empty.

November 2: Construction of the inner-city shopping, service and experience center "Goethe Galerie" begins on the site of the former Zeiss main factory.

February 9: Jenoptik CEO Lothar Späth and Lord Mayor Peter Röhlinger sign a contract package for the development of the former Zeiss main plant in Jena's city center. The new university campus will be built here in the following years.

April 1: Drackendorf (with Ilmnitz) and Maua (with Leutra) are incorporated into Jena.

April 14: Heavy rainfall, melting snow and rising groundwater cause severe flooding in the Jena city area. The underground Leutra fills the huge excavation pit of the "Goethe Galerie" completely with water.

June: The "Grüne Tanne", the founding site of Jena's "Ur "burschenschaft, is reopened after thorough renovation and has since served as a corporate house for the Burschenschaft Arminia on the Burgkeller.

June 12: The SPD is ahead in the local elections in Jena with 25.2%. It is followed by the CDU (21.4), PDS (19.8), FDP (13.7), Greens (9.9) and Citizens for Jena (5.4).

June 26: Incumbent Peter Röhlinger (FDP) emerges victorious from the run-off election for the office of Lord Mayor.

July 1: The villages of Cospeda (with Closewitz and Lützeroda), Isserstedt, Jenaprießnitz (with Wogau), Krippendorf (with Vierzehnheiligen), Kunitz (with Laasan) and Münchenroda (with Remderoda) are incorporated.

September 11: Jena organizes the Open Monument Day. In the following years, the second weekend in September is used to bring the city's architectural heritage to life by opening up otherwise inaccessible monuments.

October: At the start of the winter semester, the number of students at Friedrich Schiller University exceeds the 10,000 mark for the first time.

November 19: The Ernst Abbe Library in the Volkshaus is reopened after being closed for fourteen months. Users can now access print and electronic media for children, young people and adults in a standardized online catalog.

December: Due to the granting of risky loans since 1990, Jenaer Sparkasse finds itself in financial difficulties. Although the newly formed savings bank board considers the restructuring of the company to be completed by the end of 1996, the events continue to occupy the public eye for a long time as the "savings bank scandal".

The tower block in the city center is finally vacated by its previous main user, the university. Several years of disputes begin over finding an investor for the further use of the tower, and demolition is considered in the meantime.

Göpel electronic GmbH, founded in 1991 and now a leading global developer and supplier of (non-invasive) optical and electronic measurement and testing technology systems for electronic components, moves into its first new company building in the Jena-Göschwitz industrial park (further buildings at the same location: 2002/03 and 2008/09).

The Jena State Sports High School is given the name Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths. After 1990, it emerges from the children's and youth sports school "Werner John", which was gradually relocated from Bad Blankenburg to Jena in the 1970s.

March: The Jenaer Tafel (e. V.) starts its work to support the needy.

June 17: Former members of the opposition and citizens interested in contemporary history found the association "Geschichtswerkstatt Jena e. V." for the reappraisal of political resistance in the Soviet occupation zone and the GDR. The association has been publishing the quarterly magazine "Gerbergasse 18" since 1996.

June: The first summer Imaginata in Jena attracts 10,000 visitors. The association "Imaginata e.V.", founded in December of that year, subsequently acquires the building of the former Jena-Nord transformer station, where a science center is created by 2000 with the Imaginata Station Park.

August 7: During renovation work, the "Red Tower" collapses, killing four construction workers. The building, based on the remains of the late medieval south-eastern corner fortification of the city wall, was given a neo-Gothic brick superstructure in the 19th century. The reconstruction of the tower in 1999/2000 is based on this external appearance.

28 September: Jena's largest shopping center to date, the "Burgaupark", opens in Jena-Burgau.

February 6: Following the award of an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Philosophy to the American painter, sculptor and object artist Frank Stella, he makes four of five sculptures from the "Hudson River Valley Series" group, created in 1995, available for the design of the newly built university campus on the site of the former Zeiss main factory in the city center. The installation of the sculptures triggers a broad discussion about modern art in public spaces.

February 29: Jena's largest inner-city shopping center, the Goethe Galerie, opens. The glass-roofed arcade is integrated into the listed building fabric of the former Carl Zeiss main factory.

July 26: The ground-breaking ceremony for 930 apartments is held on the former military site on Naumburger Strasse.

October/November: The Ernst Abbe Library organizes the Jena Reading Marathon in cooperation with Lese-Zeichen e. V. for the first time. The mix of readings and discussions on fiction and non-fiction is aimed primarily at families and children.

November: The sociocultural center "Kassablanca" (since 2000 "Kassablanca Gleis 1 e. V."), which has existed since 1990, presents its youth cultural offerings for the first time in a converted water tower and engine shed at the Westbahnhof.

February: 11,025 people are registered as unemployed in the Jena employment office district (city of Jena and former district of Jena), which corresponds to an unemployment rate of 18.2%. The number of unemployed falls in the following years.

July 2: The ground-breaking ceremony for the "Himmelreich" residential area on the outskirts of Zwätzen takes place.

October 6: The re-routing of the streetcar line between the city center and Winzerla marks the end of the route through Neugasse.

October 23: The new building constructed on the west side of the market to close the gap left by the bombing during World War II meets with disapproval, mainly due to its striking color scheme.

November 18: The Chairman of the Executive Board of Jenoptik AG, Lothar Späth, is made an honorary citizen of the city on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

December 16: The new streetcar line between the city center and Neulobeda is officially opened. Construction work had begun in 1993.

January 22: The reconstructed waterworks in Burgau is inaugurated. It draws its raw water from 18 deep wells and supplies around 40,000 inhabitants of the town with drinking water.

January/February: Searches of apartments and garages of young people known to be right-wing extremists lead to the discovery of weapons and a bomb-making workshop. The main suspects, Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe, are able to escape. They form the core of a neo-Nazi terrorist organization (National Socialist Underground; NSU), which is responsible for ten murders, bomb attacks and robberies up to 2007.

February 14: The Walter Dexel Scholarship for artists from the region, awarded by the city and Stadtwerke Energie Jena-Pößneck in 1997, is awarded for the first time. It is named after the versatile painter, typographer and commercial artist Walter Dexel, who worked in Jena from 1915 to 1926.

May: Jena's budget is only approved subject to conditions imposed by the state administration office due to the high level of debt caused by the streetcar construction and the "savings bank scandal".

June 16: Lothar Späth has the state-owned Jenoptik GmbH listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as the first former GDR company.

July 16: The "Intershop" company (Intershop Communications AG), founded in Jena in 1992 and a provider of software for Internet trading, goes public on the Neuer Markt in Frankfurt. The company, temporarily one of the winners on the Neuer Markt, falls into crisis from 2001 onwards. After recovery, stabilization and restructuring, the company still employs 380 people in 2015.

September: Andrei Boreiko succeeds Andreas S. Weiser as chief conductor of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra at the start of the season. Under Boreiko's leadership (until 2003), the orchestra receives three awards from the German Music Publishers Association for the best concert program of the year.

October 30: The new "Wiesenbrücke" bridge over the Saale to Wenigenjena is opened to traffic.

December 17: In the newly built "Holz Markt Passage" after the demolition of the former "Interhotel" on Holzmarkt (1997), the large cinema "Cine-Star" opens with approx. 1,500 seats in eight halls.

January: The building of the Kulturhaus Neulobeda, which was ruined by fire and other damage, is demolished.

13 March: The "Offene Hörfunkkanal Jena" goes on air (since 2016 an association-based community radio station with its own editorial team).

15 March: After several years of wrangling, the tower block in the city center has found a new owner in Saller Gewerbebau GmbH. The tower renovation begins with the demolition of the old façade, which is replaced by a new curtain wall glass façade. The base of the tower will also be completely redesigned. "Jentower" and "Intershop Tower" are used as the new official names for the tower building.

May 5: The foundation stone for the Friedrich Schiller University's "Klinikum 2000" is laid in Neulobeda-Ost. The largest hospital in Thuringia with around 4,900 employees, 15 clinics and institutes as well as other facilities for research and teaching is built on the site, which has been planned since the 1960s.

May: The demolition of two eleven-storey residential buildings in Neulobeda-Ost begins.

June 14: The CDU wins the city council elections with 24.7% of the vote. It is followed by the SPD (23.1), PDS (21.4), FDP (13.4), Citizens for Jena (9.6) and Greens (7.9).

June 23: Detlef Reinemer'sraftsman fountain is reinstalled in the Winzerla development area. The sculpture, created in 1987, was removed shortly after its first installation for political reasons. The raftsman's fountain forms the end of the "water axis", an ensemble of artworks created in the following decade that recreates the course of a stream from its source to its mouth.

September 4: The "Train of Ghosts" takes place for the first time as part of the Literature and Museum Festival. Dressed as personalities from Jena's city and cultural history, the participants - including numerous Jena celebrities - convey a picture of the city's historical significance. Despite initially being very popular, the "Zug" is not able to establish itself permanently (last time in 2008).

September 7: With the opening of the new canteen, the last gap in the construction on the site of the former Zeiss main factory in the city center is closed.

September 18: The Christliches Gymnasium Jena, founded in 1993, moves into a former barracks in Jena-Nord, which was last used by the Soviet armed forces stationed in the GDR and was converted and later extended.

November: After thorough renovation, the Frommann property on Fürstengraben is handed over to the university for use.