Short answers, pulled from the story.
Serb merchants established a new settlement on the left bank of the Danube river in 1694. They called it the 'Serb city' because Habsburg authorities had forbidden Orthodox Christians from living inside Petrovaradin Fortress.
Maria Theresa proclaimed Novi Sad a free royal city on the 1st of February 1748. This edict granted official status to the settlement and marked its transition from a refugee colony to an autonomous urban entity.
Hungarian police killed 1,246 citizens during three days of raids between the 21st and the 23rd of January 1942. The total death toll reached approximately 2,500 people including over 800 Jews who were thrown into the Danube river.
Novi Sad earned the nickname Serbian Athens due to its role as a cultural capital during the 19th century. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić wrote in 1817 that it was the largest Serb municipality in the world while Matica srpska established the second-largest library in Serbia there in 1864.
A tragic structural failure occurred on the 1st of November 2024 when the canopy of the main railway station collapsed. This incident sparked mass protests against government corruption that swept through the region.