It was the artistic celebration created to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit".

The aftermath of the Second World War had a devastating impact yet Rudolf Franz Joseph Bing, then general manager of Glyndebourne Opera in East Sussex, and Henry Harvey Wood, head of the British Council in Scotland, were determined to reunite people through the arts.

Just two years after the war ended, the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe was born.

Historic art festivals across Europe had been occupied by the Nazis or destroyed by Allied forces - even the Old Vic in London was a victim of the Blitz.

With its historic atmosphere and a city easily traversed with a safe environment, Edinburgh became the perfect candidate to host an arts festival to engage the public following the horrors of the war.

In 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival opened on August 22 and ran until September 11.

Concentrating largely on classical music, the first festival was able to reunite more than just the general public with the arts.

Renowned conductor Bruno Walter, who had been separated from the Vienna Philharmonic due to Nazi persecution, performed with the orchestra once again at the festival.

At the finale, lord provost Sir John Falconer, chairman of the festival council, said: "History will dictate if the year 1947 has been a focal point in the history of our city."

Some 70 years later, with around a dozen different festivals branching out from its original umbrella, it would seem Sir Falconer's musings were in fact prophetic.

While Edinburgh International Festival aimed to focus on opera, dance and theatre, a fringe event arrived during its inaugural year which has remained to this day.

Eight uninvited theatre companies turned up to the festival in 1947, taking over smaller venues unoccupied by the larger productions.

Taking advantage of the large crowds gathered for the official programming, the fringe performers laid the groundwork for what remains at the festival's core today - the lack of official invitations to perform and the use of quirky venues.

The Fringe name stuck once Scottish playwright and journalist Robert Kemp remarked in 1948: "Round the fringe of official festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before."

Both festivals quickly became forerunners in artistic innovations.

In 1948, the thrust stage was resurrected for a modern age by theatre director Tyrone Guthrie.

Extending into the auditorium so that the audience is seated around three sides of the stage, the innovation revolutionised theatre building and making across the world.

Two years later, the first Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo was held on the castle esplanade, its simple scaffolding bench structure holding some 6000 spectators.

Its popularity boomed as Hollywood producer Mike Todd made a documentary that brought the event to an international audience.

The Tattoo now draws in an annual audience of 220,000, with more than 14 million watching the event since its inception.

As the years passed, both the International Festival and the Fringe drew big names to the Scottish capital each August.

Marlene Dietrich, a German-born film star and singer appeared at the Lyceum Theatre, singing a variety of cabaret songs accompanied by an orchestra led by Burt Bacharach in 1965.

Before becoming one of the Three Tenors, Plácido Domingo performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in a landmark production of Carmen in 1977.

José Carreras, would would Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti in 1990, performed at the festival in 1982, with a performance of Verdi's Requiem.

He performed the opera with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the London Symphony Orchestra.

For the Fringe, its reputation for world-class comedy could perhaps be pinpointed to 1960s show Beyond the Fringe, which starred Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.

Many believe the satire-laden show paved the way for Monty Python's Flying Circus and That Was The Week That Was.

By the 1980s, the Comic Strip who pioneered the alternative comedy scene helped to bring forth a new wave of entertainment.

The Edinburgh Comedy Awards were born in the guise of the Perrier Award and it was first presented to the Cambridge Footlights, a lineup which included Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery and Emma Thompson.

It was quickly heralded as the Oscars of Comedy.

Other notable faces to have appeared at the Fringe include Robin Williams, who appeared in a performance of Taming of the Shrew in 1971, and Billy Connolly, who performed The Great Northern Welly Boot Show a year later.

While the Edinburgh festivals are often known best for comedy, a number of other events have emerged throughout the month of August linked with the cultural celebrations.

In 1983, the Edinburgh International Book Festival was launched and hosted in Charlotte Square in a series of tents.

The world's first science festival followed in 1989 alongside the storytelling festival the same year and, in 1990, the Edinburgh International Children's Festival had its full run in Edinburgh and across the country.

In 1997, JK Rowling read to children at a small event from her first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the princely sum of £3 a ticket.

It would go on to sell more than 100 million copies.

The festival also became a pioneer for technology.

While smartphones were still outwith the public's reach, the first publicly demonstrated and commercially available mobile phone app allowed visitors to the Fringe to access the complete show guide.

The Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe have indeed fulfilled Sir John Falconer's hopes.

As the two events celebrate their 70th anniversaries on Friday, they will have enjoyed seven decades of work which had lead to more than 50,000 shows held in the city each year to an audience of 4.5 million visitors.

A major part of Scotland's cultural calendar, with the Fringe the biggest arts festival in the world, the festivals are thought to bring in £313m for the Scottish economy each year.

As the Royal Mile fills with swarms of locals and tourists, passing street performers and the omnipresent hoard of flyers, the festivals' legacies are sure to continue for many decades to come.