Ostrołęka

Ostrołęka stands on the Narew in northeastern Mazovia. It was recorded as a town in 1373, a date commonly associated with its town rights. By the early fifteenth century it traded wood, amber and honey with the neighbouring lands of the Teutonic Order. After Mazovia was incorporated into the Polish kingdom in 1526, the town prospered, though epidemics and fire struck in 1564 and another epidemic followed in 1571. Swedish forces devastated it in 1656; trade revived in the later eighteenth century with Gdańsk, Warsaw and Königsberg. The partitions of Poland brought Prussian rule, followed by the Duchy of Warsaw. Battles took place near Ostrołęka in 1807 and in 1831, during the Polish November Uprising against Russian rule.