History and Civilization
Even before Gonesse appeared in 832, under the name Gaunissa, there was already a human settlement in these places in prehistoric times. The archeological findings attest to the continued presence of a habitat through the Neolithic, Iron Age, the Gallo-Roman era and the Middle Ages, until the present day.
- From the eleventh to fourteenth century, Gonesse became known for its sheets of wool, called gaunace, whose manufacture is owed much to Crould and his mills, the woolen cloth mills installed on the creek.
- From the 15th to the 17th century the village carved a solid reputation for the quality of its bread made from local wheat, known as the calf bread of Gonesse.
- Fortified in the fourteenth century, the village saw Jeanne d’Arc pass by, in 1429. The national heroine is said to have stopped here to quench her thirst at the Dame-Jeanne fountain, which was once on the path leading to the Patte-d’Oie.
- It was at Gonesse that, on August 27 1783, the first gas balloon in history, built by Jacques Charles, landed after a flight of 16 kilometers.
- More recently, on July 25 2000, Gonesse entered with uproar in another section of history, that of air disasters, by the fall of a Concorde on its territory. Only a few hundred metres away from inhabited houses, the plane however smashed into a hotel, resulting in the death of the aircraft’s crew and passengers and people on the ground.