What is the history of Paris?

Question

How did Paris become a great city?

Answer 1

The short answer,
More than 2000 years of people living there, being the capital of the most important country in the world (at least in their own eyes) for several centuries.
Being the spider in the web, the central point for almost all travel and trade within the country for more than 200 years.

As it was the most important city in a big area, more people wanted to live there.
So now it has a very diverse population, with people from all over the world.
Fashion, art, music, all come to Paris.
And so on.......

Answer 2

VERY broad question there.
The best you can do is look up 'history of paris' on Google and you'll get what you're after, there's so much history to Paris it's too hard to describe in a simple box where you're limited on space =)