The Romans captured Toledo from the Celtiberians in 193 B.C., calling it "Toletum," from "tollitum" meaning "raised on high." The Visigoths conquered it in the 5th century and made it their capital in the 6th, and although few traces of them remain, it was this that laid the foundations for Toledo's subsequent wealth and prestige. After its resistance-less capture by the Moors in 711, the same year as the Muslim invasion, it became the most important Moorish city north of Córdoba, and remained in Muslim hands for nearly four centuries. The essential shape and nature of the city was formed during those four centuries, the winding course of its narrow streets being defined, and its various quarters - Christian, Jewish and Muslim - becoming definitive. Many of the Christians adapted to life under Moorish rule by adopting certain aspects of Arab culture, such a person being called in Arabic a musta‘rib or would-be Arab, which became mozarabe in Spanish, the term becoming extended to all the Toledan Christians. The Mozarabs left a greater impression on the city than any other group, as this culture persisted even after the reconquest: mass is still held following the Mozarab rite in Toledo's great cathedral. But Jewish culture also flourished under the tolerance of Muslim rule. This was the panorama when Alphonse VI and El Cid took the reconquista to Toledo in 1085 and incorporated it into the Kingdom of Castile, making it the capital. The king promised to allow the Muslims to use their own language and practise their religion, and the majority who remained in the city thus became mudajjan in Arabic, "allowed to stay," which became mudéjar in Spanish (and English), a term particularly useful in architecture. So began Toledo's golden age, for Christians, Muslims and, particularly, Jews: Sephards still look back on the Toledo of that time as a pinnacle of Jewish culture.
The municipal tourist board calls late-mediaeval Toledo the "city of three cultures," which is perhaps overly romantic (as well as an underestimate: for example, the Christians who came south with King Alphonse and were rewarded with property and land in Toledo would have been a distinct group from the Mozarabs). But the undeniable examples of cultural cohabitation and exchange are striking. The Toledo School of Translators of the 11th and 12th centuries is particularly famous, though doubts have been raised about the extent to which it was physically based in the city. Toledo then took on the physical appearance that makes it such a characteristic place, both Mudéjar and Mozarab traits becoming incorporated in the architecture that was fleshing out the bones of the Arab city, except for Toledo Cathedral, begun in 1226 and considered the city's only purely Gothic building.
It couldn't last, of course, and the social and economic ills that affected Europe in the 14th century were felt in Spain, as well. The atmosphere of tolerance which had characterised Toledo deteriorated, and the Jews in particular were blamed for everything. In the 15th century, the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, the first king and queen of the new country of Spain, established the Inquisition in Toledo in 1485, and in 1492 decreed the forcible conversion or expulsion of Jews and Muslims. The social fabric of Toledo was destroyed.
The economic disaster that should have been provoked by this waste of wealth and professional skills was put off in the first instance by confiscations of property and land and in the second by Charles V / Carlos I (same chap, different thrones) adopting Toledo as the capital of the Spanish Empire in 1519. This brought a new period of prosperity, but when Philip II moved the court to Madrid in 1561, it was nearly a slow kiss of death for Toledo. The city went into decline, becoming more and more rural and provincial over the centuries, even the Alcázar losing its status as a royal residence to become a state prison in the 17th century. El Greco moved to Toledo in 1577 and painted many of his most important works there, particularly his masterpiece, "The Burial of Count Orgaz."
In the Spanish Civil War, the city remained loyal to the Republic, but the Alcázar, then an Infantry Academy, declared its support for the insurgents. The ensuing siege lasted months and the building was practically destroyed by Republican artillery, but not taken, being relieved by a rebel column in the nick of time. It thus became emblematic for Franco's fascists and was completely rebuilt in the nineteen-fifties and made the "Museo del Asedio," a monument to the fascist casualties. A whole mythology was invented in the process, especially one fantasy involving fascist General Moscardó and his son, the latter being a Republican hostage in the story, allowed to speak to his father to try to persuade him to surrender on the threat of the son being shot. Moscardó instead told his son to trust his soul to God and shout "Viva España" in the face of the firing squad (the story is a crude reworking of the tale of Guzmán El Bueno throwing his knife down for the Moors to kill his son with rather than surrender). There used to be a supposed tape recording of the phone conversation. All in all, the Alcázar was a fascist shrine and its choice as the new Army Museum provoked predictable controversy.