The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800,000 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the Red Hill (Červený kopec) archeological site in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people known by name. One of the Celtic tribes were the Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name Boiohaemum – Latin for the Land of Boii. Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.
After the turbulent times of the Migration Period, the Czech lands were ultimately settled by the Slavic tribes. The year of 623 marks the formation of the first known state in the Czech lands, when Samo united the local Slavic tribes, defended their lands from the Avars to the east and – few years later – won the battle of Wogastisburg against the Franks invading the Czech lands from the west. The next state appearing in the Czech lands after the dissolution of the Samo's state was probably the Great Moravia. The center of its power lay in the area of Moravia and present-day western Slovakia. In 863, Cyril and Methodius, two scholars from Greece, brought Christianity to the Great Moravia and established the first Slavic script – Glagolitsa. The Great Moravia fell during the Magyar invasion at the start of the 10th century.
A new state formed around the tribe of Premyslids, who founded the Duchy of Bohemia. The duchy existed largely within the sphere of influence of the East Franconia and later the Holy Roman Empire.
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The Czechs (Češi, ˈtʃɛʃɪ; singular Czech, masculine: Čech ˈtʃɛx, singular feminine: Češka ˈtʃɛʃka), or the Czech people (Český lid), are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, culture, history, and the Czech language. Ethnic Czechs were called Bohemians in English until the early 20th century, referring to the former name of their country, Bohemia, which in turn was adapted from the late Iron Age tribe of Celtic Boii.
The Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and Fascist Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. The pact is also known in some areas as the Munich Betrayal (Mnichovská zrada; Mníchovská zrada), because of a previous 1924 alliance agreement and a 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic.
Brno (ˈbɜːrnoʊ , ˈbr̩no; Brünn bʁʏn) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 390,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after the capital, Prague, and one of the 100 largest cities of the EU. The Brno metropolitan area has almost 700,000 inhabitants. Brno is the former capital city of Moravia and the political and cultural hub of the South Moravian Region.