the city in August 1487 after having laid siege to it for two years. According to legend he dedicated the magnificent Corvinus Cup to the inhabitants after his victory. Maximilian I managed to reconquer his native city in 1490. During the 16th century, Wiener Neustadt lost its status as imperial residence and much of its importance. However, it still fulfilled its function as bulwark against the Turks and the Kuruc. It was at Neustadt that the emperor Rudolf II granted to the Bohemian Protestants, in 1609, the , or patent of equal rights. The revocation of this patent helped to precipitate the Thirty Years' War. In 1751 the city received greater attention when Empress Maria Theresa of Austria decided to dedicate the First Military Academy, worldwide, inside the imperial castle. In 1752, the Theresian Military Academy took up its operations, which have continued to this day with only a few interruptions (Erwin Rommel was appointed commandant after the Austrian Anschluss in 1938). In 1768, Wiener Neustadt was destroyed by an earthquake that damaged the castle, which was rebuilt using plans made by the architect Nicolò Pacassi. In 1785, Emperor Joseph II of Habsburg transferred the see of the Wiener Neustadt diocese to Sankt Pölten. In the 19th century the city, which was almost entirely rebuilt after a destructive fire in 1834, became an industrial town, especially after the opening of the Austrian Southern Railway in 1841. In 1909, the "first official Austrian airfield" was inaugurated north of the city. It served as a training ground for the flight pioneers Igo Etrich, Karl Illner and Adolf Warchalowski, who conducted their tests there. The Austro-Hungarian strike of January 1918 was started in Wiener Neustadt by workers from the Austro-Daimler factory, which was engaged in arms production, and inspired by the Bolshevik seizure of power to take strike action to oppose the war. A key factor in the strike was the halving of the flour ration. Porsche met the workers and agreed to drive to Vienna to speak to the Minister of Food. However his plea to the workers to return to work was ignored and they marched on the Town Hall. Here they were joined by other workers from the locomotive factory, the radiator works, the aircraft factory and local ammunition plants of G. Rath and the Lichtenwörther. On 14 January over 10,000 workers gathered outside the town hall to complain about