Alexander the Great founded Alexandria in 332 B.C. after conquering Egypt. At one time, Alexandria was the capital and the greatest city of Egypt and remains the country's foremost seaport and second largest city next to Cairo.
Alexandria is a vacation destination because of its white sand along the Mediterranean seacoast.
At one point in history, Alexandria was part of the Roman Empire. Some of the structures which remain from this time period are the Roman amphitheater of Kawm al Dikka, Pompeii's Pillar (AD 297), and the catacombs of Kawm ash Shuqafah, 2nd and 3rd century tombs.
The Greco-Roman Museum holds valuable artifacts from ancient times.
The Pharaohs of Alexandria built a lighthouse at the entrance to the harbor. Because of its height of 400 feet (120 meters), it was at one time considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The city was renowned as a learning center whose library of the ancient university contained half a million manuscripts. It's destruction in the late 3rd century A.D. has caused scholars worldwide much angst, since destroyed with it was a great deal of the knowledge of the world back to its beginnings.
Cleopatra was the last Ptolemaic monarch and once called Alexandria home. After her death in 30 BC, Alexandria became part of the Roman Empire along with the rest of Egypt, and it embarked upon an era of Christianity.
After the time of the Arab conquest in 642, the city began to fall in greatness, being ignored in favor of Cairo. The country entered an Islamic era, and then fell to the Turks in 1517.
It fell into French and then English hands, and by 1805 Muhammad Ali Pasha emerged as viceroy of Egypt, redeveloping Alexandria into a center of trade and industry.
