A number of archaeological findings testify to the settlement of the territory of the Czech Republic from 28,000 BC. From the 3rd century BC the Celts inhabit this area and in the 1st century AD Germanic tribes arrive.
From the 5th century, Slavs appeared in the territory of today’s Czech Republic. In the 7th century, Slavic tribes formed the Sami Empire. In 833, the Great Moravian Empire was established in Moravia, Slovakia, northern Hungary and western Transcarpathia, which gradually included Bohemia (890–894), Silesia, Lusatia, Lesser Poland and the rest of Hungary. The Great Moravian Empire, from which Bohemia broke away in 894, was overthrown by the Hungarians in 907.
The origins of the Czech state date back to the second half of the 9th century, when, among other things, the first documented Czech prince from the Přemyslov dynasty, Bořivoj, was baptized. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the state is consolidated, Moravia is annexed and the country becomes a kingdom. It reached its peak during the last Přemyslov dynasty, but mainly during the reign of Charles IV. In the 15th century, the Czech lands were significantly weakened by the Hussite wars.
In 1526, the Habsburg dynasty definitively ascended the Czech throne, which incorporated the country into the Habsburg monarchy. In 1547 and 1618, armed rebellions broke out against the monarch. The defenestration of the viceroys became the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. Estates were quickly defeated and punished with severe repression. The violent re-Catholicization of Czech Protestants began.
According to petsinclude, religious tolerance and the abolition of serfdom were only brought about by the reforms of Joseph II. in 1781. From the end of the 18th century, a national revival began in the Czech lands, which sought to restore Czech culture and language and later to gain political power.
After the defeat of Austria-Hungary in the First World War (1914 – 1918), the Czech lands became independent on October 28, 1918 and became the core of the newly formed Czechoslovakia (Republika Československá, Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia, also called the First Republic), whose territory also included Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus (also Transcarpathian Ukraine). Under the pressure of Nazi Germany and the European powers, in September 1938, Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the border area (the so-called Sudetenland) to Germany by the Munich Agreement. The southern regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus fell to Hungary, a small part of Czechoslovak territory (especially the region of Těšín) was acquired by Poland. After this act, the hyphen (Czechoslovakia) returned to the name of Czechoslovakia, and there is talk of the so-called second republic. On March 14, 1939, Slovakia seceded, and after the occupation by German troops on the 15 In March 1939, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was declared on the rest of the Czechoslovak territory. In May 1945 Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Allies and the Germans were displaced to Germany and Austria.
In February 1948, the Communists seized power with a coup in Czechoslovakia; the country becomes a totalitarian state and part of the Soviet bloc. In 1960, its political name was changed to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR). The liberalization movement of 1968, known as the Prague Spring, was defeated by the invasion of the troops of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries (the German Democratic Republic, the Polish People’s Republic, the Hungarian People’s Republic, and the Bulgarian People’s Republic) on August 21, 1968. By the Federalization Act of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, which took effect on January 1, 1969, Czechoslovakia formally changed into a federation of two nation states – the Czech Republic (officially the Czech Socialist Republic, ČSR) and Slovakia (officially the Slovak Socialist Republic, SSR). The political situation in the country was changed only by the Velvet Revolution on November 17, 1989. At the beginning of 1990, the adjective “socialist” was removed from the political name of both national republics. At the beginning of the spring of the same year, the political name of Czechoslovakia changed to the Czechoslovak Federative Republic (ČSFR), which less than a month later was changed again to the not very appropriate Czech and Slovak Federative Republic.
As a state entity, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on January 1, 1993, when it peacefully split into the Czechia and Slovakia. In 1999, the Czechia was admitted to NATO. In a referendum in 2003, the Czech Republic and Slovakia approved their accession to the European Union, which took effect on May 1, 2004.
