Dealul Spirii is a hill in Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, upon which, currently, the Palace of the Parliament

Palace of the Parliament

The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania is a multi-purpose building containing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Palace is the world's largest civilian administrative building, most expensive administrative building, and...

 (formerly known as House of the People) is located.

Spirii Hill

Initially a vineyard known as Dealul Lupeştilor, the hill was rebaptised after a doctor Spiridon Kristofi (also known as "Spirea"), who founded in 1765 the fortified Spirea Veche church; the latter was demolished in 1984 to build the House of the People.

Also on the hill were found the ruins of Curtea Nouă

Curtea Noua

Curtea Nouă was the residence of the Princes of Wallachia between 1776 and 1812.Located near the Mihai Vodă Monastery, on Dealul Spirii in Bucharest, it was built between 1775-1776 during the rule of Alexander Ypsilantis, and it meant to replace the old princely court at Curtea Veche.Curtea Nouă...

 ("New Court"), the princely residence which was built in 1776 by Alexander Ypsilantis

Alexander Ypsilantis (1725-1805)

Alexander Ypsilantis was a Greek Voivode of Wallachia from 1775 to 1782, and again from 1796 to 1797, and also Voivode of Moldavia from 1786 to 1788. He bears the same name as, but should not be confused with, his grandson, the Greek War of Independence hero of the early 19th century...

, Prince of Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, to replace Curtea Veche

Curtea Veche

Curtea Veche , built as a place or residence during the rule of Vlad III Dracula in the 15th century, now operates as a museum in the centre of Bucharest, Romania. The residence was moved under the rule of Radu cel Frumos, who moved the princely residence and the Wallachian capital to Bucharest...

. It was built together with a large wine cellar

Wine cellar

A wine cellar is a storage room for wine in bottles or barrels, or more rarely in carboys, amphorae or plastic containers. In an active wine cellar, important factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system. In contrast, passive wine cellars are not...

, still in use during the 1900s. Curtea Nouă was the official residence of the Phanariotes

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

 until 1812, when it burnt down — it was since known as Curtea Arsă ("Burnt Court"), the ruins being razed completely in 1986.

In July 1818, Dealul Spirii saw the rising of a hot air balloon

Hot air balloon

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is in a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air...

, an event witnessed by Prince Gheorghe Caragea.

On 13 September 1848, the closing battle of the 1848 Wallachian Revolution was fought on the hill, involving the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 troops sent to quell the rebels and the Firemen division of Bucharest, led by Pavel Zăgănescu.

Arsenal Hill

The hill was also the site of the Arsenal (established in 1861), which gave Dealul Spirii its alternate name, Dealul Arsenalului. Also located on this hill was Stadionul Republicii

Stadionul Republicii

Stadionul Republicii, was a multi-use stadium in Bucharest, Romania. It was used mostly for football matches. The stadium was able to hold 28,026 spectators at its height and originally opened in 1948...

, an Art deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 stadium inaugurated in 1928 as the "ANEF Stadium" (the stadium of the "National Academy of Physical Education) and used by the Progresul football team, now known as FC Naţional

FC National Bucuresti

Fotbal Club Progresul Bucureşti is a Romanian football club from Bucharest, founded in 1944...

. The stadium was covered up during the construction of the House of the People. As of 2006, the remnants of the stadium are being converted into an underground parking lot.

After World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the hill gave its name to a famous trial (the Dealul Spirii Trial) that involved the members of the Romanian Communist Party

Romanian Communist Party

The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...

, after a bomb was detonated on 8 December 1920 in the Romanian Senate

Senate of Romania

The Senate of Romania is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 137 seats , to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using Mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts , to serve four-year terms.-Former location:After the Romanian...

 (situated on the hill), which was detonated by Max Goldstein

Max Goldstein

Max Goldstein , also known as Coca, was a Romanian revolutionary, variously described as a communist and an anarchist.Born in Bârlad to a Jewish family, he worked as a clerk and moved to Bucharest, where he became a Communist sympathizer...

, a communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 sympathizer.

Uranus Hill

Around the hill was located the Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

Uranus , was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. His equivalent in Roman mythology was Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, according to Hesiod in his Theogony, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth...

 quarter, named after the main thoroughfare, which ran up the hill from Calea Rahovei to the Stadium, and thence to Splaiul Independenţei and Izvor

Izvor

Izvor may refer to several places:* Izvor, a village in Cornereva Commune, Caraş-Severin County* Izvor, a village in Şimnicu de Sus Commune, Dolj County* Izvor metro station in Bucharest* Izvor, a village in the Čaška municipality, Republic of Macedonia....

.
This was one of the historic districts completely destroyed by Nicolae Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

's communist regime

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

, in order to build the House of the People

Palace of the Parliament

The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania is a multi-purpose building containing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Palace is the world's largest civilian administrative building, most expensive administrative building, and...

(see Ceauşima

Ceausima

Ceauşima is a vernacular word construction in Romanian, sarcastically linking former Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu to Hiroshima. This portmanteau term was sometimes coined in the 1980s to describe the huge urban areas of Bucharest that Ceauşescu ordered torn down, comparing the results with...

).
It had been the site of many historic buildings, including a number of churches and synagogues. Also, when the hill was razed for the building, under it was found a mass grave

Mass grave

A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...

. Further research showed that the sketelons belonged to people who died of the Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

.