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Sicilian and Greco-Sicilian era
Diodorus Siculus, in the 14th book of his Bibliotheca historica, attests that the Sicels inhabited the fortress of Taormina and lived on agriculture and livestock breeding even before the landing of the Chalcidian Greeks in the bay, where at the mouth of the Alcantara river they founded Naxos, the first Greek colony in Sicily.
The tyrant of Syracuse Dionysius I, ally of Sparta in the war against the imperialism of Athens and supporter of the Sicilian ideals of the congress of Gela, after having unified the Sicilian cities under his crown, tolerated little the presence in Naxos of the Ionians of Chalcis Euboea , allies of Athens, and moved against them, destroying their city. These events occurred in the years of the XCVI Olympiad, when the Carthaginian leader Himilcon II made war on the Siceliotes and destroyed Messana.
Vito Amico states that this version of the origins of Taormina provided by Diodorus is contradicted in book 16, when he claims that Andromachus gathered the survivors of the massacre of Naxos in 403 BC. This would somehow clarify the statement of Pliny, who claims that Taormina was originally called Naxos.
According to the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, Taormina, wisely governed by Andromachus, progresses and shines in opulence and power.

The Roman Odeon
Rome declares all of Sicily a Roman province. Its inhabitants are considered allies of the Romans, and in the second oration against Verres Cicero mentions that the city is one of the three "Civitates foederatae", which he names "Civis Notabilis". , during the war between Sesto Pompeo and Octaviano, the latter's troops landed in Naxos to take back the city from Sesto Pompeo who had previously occupied it. Strabo speaks of Tauromenion as a small city, smaller than Messina and Catania.

Late Empire and Fall of the Empire
According to a widespread legend, with the advent of Christianity Saint Peter assigned Bishop Pancrazio to Taormina, who was already carrying out his conversion work in the region, with this appointment effectively determining the seat of the first bishopric in Sicily.

Siege of 902 and Muslim rule
On 1 August 902, after a siege, Taormina was conquered by the Arabs. Although all of Sicily was now unified in the powerful Emirate of Sicily, in 911, however, the Christian component regained control of the city, taking advantage of the traumatic transfer of power that occurred in the previous year between the Sunni Aghlabid dynasty and the Ismaili Shiite Fatimid dynasty. alQurhub, who remained faithful to the deposed Aghlabid dynasty of Qayrawān, organized an expedition to regain control of Taormina, sending his son Alī to besiege the city in 913 who, however, resisted strenuously, so much so that the besieger was forced to give up the undertaking.
In 919 the new emir of Palermo Sālim ibn Rashīd, loyal to the Fatimids, granted a truce to Taormina and other fortresses in Val Demone.

Corvaja Palace
From 1272 the governor of Taormina was Giovanni Natoli, Baron of Sparta.
When the bishopric was transferred to the city, Taormina became a state-owned city, included first in the diocese of Troina and then in that of Messina.
Taormina followed the events of the Kingdom of Sicily, under the Swabian dynasty and then under that of the Aragona family starting from the Sicilian Vespers of 1282.
In 1410 the Sicilian Parliament, one of the oldest in Europe, held its historic session in Taormina at the Corvaja palace, in the presence of Queen Blanche of Navarre, for the election of the king of Sicily after the death of Martin I known as the Younger .

Siege of 1675 and French rule
In 1675, on the occasion of the anti-Spanish revolt in Messina, Taormina remained faithful to the Crown of Spain. In 1678, after the French were defeated, Taormina returned under the aegis of the Spanish Empire, within which the Kingdom of Sicily was included under the leadership of a viceroy, with the ancient privileges.

From the end of the 18th century to the present day
The Bourbons made access to the city easier, which since Roman times had been through the narrow consular Valeria which climbed up the hills, cutting through the Catrabico promontory and thus creating a coastal road that easily connected Messina to Catania. The Spanish rule of the Bourbons lasted until 1860. The ideas of the Risorgimento and the feelings of freedom and national unity had long since inflamed many Sicilian minds and hearts. Many Taormina patriots had to flee the city due to the harsh Bourbon repression, led by a certain Giuseppe Maniscalco. On Christmas night 1856, several conspirators were arrested, surprised by the police in the La Rosa house in Calatabiano.
The Garibaldians arrived in Taormina on 3 August 1860, under the command of Nino Bixio, who slept in the house of Baron Giovanni Platania.
In the autumn of the same year Sicily venne annexed to Piedmont and, therefore, to the Kingdom of Italy.
Taormina ceased to be at the center of Sicily's political and military events.
 

19th century
Many European nations and famous writers and artists showed interest in the pleasant place and its archaeological beauties.
Many European nations and famous writers and artists (Goethe, Maupassant, Houel and others) showed interest in the pleasant place and its archaeological beauties. Since then, Taormina developed and became a destination for elite tourism, initially coming mainly from England: Florence Trevelyan (1852-1907), daughter of Edward Spencer Trevelyan (1805-1854), and Catherine Ann Forster (1815-1877) lived there. After a very long journey, having returned to her homeland for a period, Trevelyan decided to return to live in Taormina which she radically transformed together with her surroundings. She then married Salvatore Cacciola, professor of surgery at the University of Bologna, Grand Master Freemason and enlightened theosophist, who was mayor of Taormina for over twenty years with ups and downs.

Trevelyan first helped the La Floresta family free of charge to expand the first hotel in Taormina, the Timeo hotel, then she purchased the rock of S. Stefano, transforming it into an earthly paradise later nicknamed Isola Bella during a discussion between her and the German baron and homosexual photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden.
She bought 87 lots of land to create a park between 1897 and 1898 which she named “Hallington Siculo” in honor of Hallington Hall, the small village in Lincolnshire where she had lived.
After his death, so that the park remained for the people of Taormina and not for the English, it was expropriated by Cesare Acrosso, Cacciola's only male nephew, in agreement with Giovanni Colonna, Duke of Cesarò, to whom it was registered with Royal Decree Law 528 of 18 February 1923.
 

20th century
Taormina soon became famous throughout the world, both for its scenic beauty, panoramas, colors, for the paintings of the snow-capped and smoking Etna that declines to the turquoise sea, and for its permissiveness and "transgression",  for its unbridled " sweet life".
Many hotels arose, all managed by Taormina families. The town of fishermen, farmers and wealthy bourgeois transformed into a town of traders, hoteliers and builders. During World War II it was the seat of the German command of the Wehrmacht, so on 9 July 1943, the day of the patron saint San Pancrazio Vescovo, Taormina suffered two devastating bombings by Allied planes which destroyed part of the southern area and a wing of the famous San Domenico hotel, where a meeting of the German high command was taking place.
In the post-war period, Taormina expanded without altering its natural beauty and until 1968 it remained a purely winter holiday town for rich and individual tourism, so much so that the best hotels opened in October and closed in June. It was frequented by internationally renowned writers, royals and state presidents, by illustrious and famous people who wintered for months in Taormina hotels, spending their days, but above all their nights, in the typical nightclubs of the time and thus continuing that dolce vita that began with the Belle Epoque.

A book that tells the story of a German Jewish family that lived for a short time in Taormina in 1939. You can find it on Amazon in both Italian and English.