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History


895
Conquest - Magyar tribes, led by Prince Árpád, arrive in the Carpathian Basin; conquer the region after several years.

900—970
Magyar raids on western Europe and Byzantium.

1000
Founding of the Hungarian state — Coronation of King (Saint) Stephen I. During his reign until 1038, Hungarians are converted to Christianity and the structure of the Hungarian state is established.

1222
King Andrew II issues the Golden Bull, a kind of constitution reaffirming the rights of the monarch and the nobility in national policy-making.

1241—1242
Mongol invaders overrun Hungary, inflicting catastrophic devastation. King Béla IV oversees the country’s reconstruction.

1301
The Árpád dynasty becomes extinct. Some years later Charles Robert I of the Anjou dynasty ascends to the throne. The Anjou monarchs remain in power until 1387.

1342—1382
King Louis I the Great (crowned Polish king in 1370) extends the borders of the medieval Hungarian state; largest territorial control in Hungary’s history.

1387—1437
Reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the longest rule of medieval Hungary. (Sigismund is crowned Bohemian king in 1420 and Holy Roman Emperor in 1433.)

1456
Captain-General János Hunyadi (governor of Hungary from 1446 to 1452) successfully repels the Turkish attack on Nándorfehérvár (now Belgrade, Serbia), halting the Ottoman advance towards Europe for over half a century.

1458—1490
During the reign of Matthias I (Hunyadi) Hungary becomes a major European power, conquering part of Bohemia and ruling over Vienna. Matthias invites foreign humanists to his royal court in Buda, sponsors artists and establishes the famous Bibliotheca Corviniana.

1514
György Dózsa leads Hungary’s bloodiest peasant uprising.

August 29, 1526
Hungarian troops suffer a horrific defeat from the expansionary Ottoman Empire near Mohács. (To this day, Hungarians are known to say, "More was lost at Mohács" in times of distress.) One camp of the feudal estates elects János (John) Szapolyai while another camp elects Ferdinand (of Habsburg) I king.

1541
Turks seize Buda, the capital of Hungary. The country is divided into three parts. The Turkish-occupied central part is wedged between Habsburg north-western Hungary and Transylvania, which becomes a more or less independent (sovereign) principality.

1591—1606
Fifteen Years' War against the Turks.

1604—1606
The struggle of István Bocskai (ruler of Transylvania from 1605) ends with the Peace Treaty of Vienna (1606), in which the Habsburgs recognise the independence of Transylvania.

1613—1629
Transylvania's golden age under the rule of Gábor Bethlen.

1683—1699
The international army of the Holy League based on Habsburg troops drive the Turks out of Hungary, which is incorporated — together with Transylvania and Croatia — into the Habsburg Empire.

1703—1711
Anti-Habsburg War of Independence led by Ferenc Rákóczi II (Prince of Transylvania from 1704, ruling prince from 1705). The Diet of Ónod (1707) dethrones the House of Habsburg but Hungary loses the struggle.

1740—1780
Reign of Maria Theresa (named apostolic monarch by the Pope in 1753, and formally assumed this title from 1758). Increase of population through massive immigration.

1780—1790
Reign of Joseph II, an enlightened absolutist monarch. On his deathbed he retracts all of his reforms with the exception of his decrees on religious tolerance, the abolition of perpetual serfdom and the situation of the lower clergy.

1825
Foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and beginning of the Age of Reform, spearheaded by Count István Széchenyi (an aristocrat), Ferenc Deák (a member of the landed gentry) and Lajos Kossuth (a member of the lower gentry). In 1832 Hungarian replaces Latin as the official language of the Diet.

March 15, 1848
During the "spring of European nations", a revolution breaks out in Pest (a few days after the revolutions of Palermo, Paris, Berlin and Vienna). On March 17, Count Lajos Batthyány is commissioned to form the first independent Hungarian government answerable to Parliament. The laws enacted by the last feudal Diet, guaranteeing civil rights, creating civil property and declaring Hungary's total constitutional independence, take effect on April 11.

September 1848
An armed struggle to defend independent Hungarian statehood from the Habsburgs, after initial defeats, results in a series of military successes for Hungarian troops.

April 14, 1849
Parliament proclaims the full independence of Hungary and the deposition of the Habsburg dynasty. Lajos Kossuth is elected
Governor-President.

August 13, 1849
Fall of the War of Independence: The Hungarian army surrenders to the superior forces of the Austrian Emperor and the Russian Tsar at Világos. The leaders of the War of Independence are forced into exile.

October 6, 1849
Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány faces a firing squad in Pest while 13 generals of the War of Independence are executed in Arad (now in Romania). Hungarian leaders are forced to emigrate. By way of retaliation, all laws of 1848-1849 are abolished; only the emancipation of serfs remains in force. The constitutional independence of Hungary is abolished and Austrian customs laws and its legal system are introduced.

June 8, 1867
Compromise with the House of Habsburg: Emperor Francis Joseph I is crowned Hungarian king. The Austro—Hungarian Monarchy is established as an alliance of two equal states, which have a common monarch and common foreign and defence ministry, as well as a common finance ministry to defray their expenses. Hungary regains its independent statehood and establishes its own political institutions. Dynamic economic development is coupled with aggravated political and national tensions.

1873
Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, is created through the unification of Pest, Buda and Óbuda. 

1914—1918
The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is defeated in the First World War and falls apart into nation-states.

October 30-31, 1918
A democratic revolution breaks out in Budapest, followed by the proclamation of republic on November 16. Count Mihály Károlyi becomes Prime Minister, and then President of the Republic.

March 21 — August 1, 1919
Communist takeover: The Republic of Councils survives for 133 days. A shadow government is formed in Szeged, with Miklós Horthy, commander-in-chief of the national army, filling the post of defence minister.

November 16, 1919
Horthy marches into Budapest.

March 1, 1920
Horthy is elected regent of Hungary.

June 4, 1920
The Treaty of Trianon is signed. Hungary's new borders are drawn without considering the ethnic pattern of the population. The treaty reduces the territory of the country from 288,000 square kilometres to 93,000 square kilometres and its population from 18.2 million to 7.6 million. Nearly 3.3 million people – over a third of Hungarians living in the Carpathian Basin – find themselves under the authority of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. From that time, Hungary's foreign policy gives priority to revision. From the 1930s this endeavour enjoys growing support in fascist Germany and Italy.

November 6, 1921
Parliament enacts a law on the dethronement of the House of Habsburg.

1921—1931
The government led by Count István Bethlen consolidates the country as a limited multi-party parliamentary democracy.

1938—1941
In the wake of Italian-German arbitration, the southern rim of Slovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Hungarians, returns to Hungary in 1938. So does Northern Transylvania in 1940. Subcarpathia is re-annexed to Hungary in 1939. After the German occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941, Bácska, the Baranya Triangle, Muraköz and Muravidék return to Hungary.

June 26, 1941
László Bárdossy's government declares war on the Soviet Union. Hungary enters the Second World War.

March 19, 1944
Hungary is occupied by German troops. Jews living in the provinces are deported to Nazi death camps in May, June and July.

October 15, 1944
Abortive attempt to pull out of the war: Regent Horthy resigns on October 16 and, together with his family, he is deported to Germany. The ultra-right Arrow Cross Party comes to power.

December 21—22, 1944
Provisional National Assembly convenes in Debrecen, in the eastern part of the country liberated by the Soviet Army. It sets up a provisional government, which declares war on Germany.

April 1945 
Soviet forces drive the German troops out of the country. Hungary loses about 1 million citizens and 40 per cent of its national wealth in the war.

1945
Reconstruction, distribution of land, restoration of parliamentary democracy. The free parliamentary elections based on secret ballot and held in November result in a coalition government of the civic and left-wing parties.

February 1, 1946
Hungary becomes a Republic. On August 1 a new, stable currency, the forint is introduced.

February 10, 1947
The Peace Treaty of Paris practically restores Hungary's 1937 borders, annexing a further three villages near Bratislava to Czechoslovakia.

August 31, 1947
In parliamentary elections, which are not at all free from fraud, the Communist party gains a relative majority. The opposition is gradually deprived of all influence.

1948—1956
In 1948 the Communists and the Social Democrats merge into the Hungarian Working People's Party, which introduces a one-party system and a Soviet-type totalitarian regime (nationalisation, forced collectivisation of agriculture, strict central planning, show trials). The Constitution of the Hungarian People's Republic comes into force on August 20, 1949. Hungary becomes part of the Communist Soviet bloc. The standard of living plummets dramatically and public dissent increases.

October 23 - November 4, 1956
An anti-totalitarian revolution breaks out and, after a Soviet intervention, turns into a freedom fight. On November 1 Prime Minister Imre Nagy announces Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. A rival government established by János Kádár in Szolnok calls in Soviet troops, which oppress the revolution and takes over the whole country.

1956—1988
The Kádár era begins with bloody retaliations (over 200 people are executed, including Imre Nagy and his associates in 1958, 200,000 refugees escape from the country), followed by a period of slow consolidation. From 1968 Hungary introduces cautious economic reforms and raises western loans to modernise its economy. The standard of living rises slightly, but the country piles up foreign debts. The period of "goulash communism": the West views Hungary as the "merriest barrack" in the socialist camp.

1987—1989
The political opposition to the "existing socialist regime" becomes active: traditional democratic parties re-emerge and new ones established. In 1989 the political forces launch roundtable talks on the political and legal conditions of a peaceful change in regime and a timetable for establishing democratic rule of law based on a multi-party system. The communist state party (Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party) ceases to exist.

June 16, 1989
Imre Nagy and his fellow martyrs are reburied on the anniversary of their execution. Kádár's death on July 6 puts a symbolic end to the period hallmarked by his name.

September 10, 1989
The Hungarian government opens the country's western borders to East German refugees. In the autumn, Central-Eastern European socialist regimes topple one after the other. The Berlin Wall, the symbol of divided Europe, is dismantled.

October 23, 1989
The Republic of Hungary is proclaimed.

1990—1991
Soviet troops leave Hungary.

1990—2004
Hungary carries out a peaceful change in regime and undergoes a sweeping economic and political transformation in the framework of a multi-party system that emerged in the wake of free elections in 1990. Pursuing a Euro-Atlantic foreign policy, Hungary joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) on March 12, 1999 and becomes a full member of the European Union on May 1, 2004.

 

MONARCHS OF HUNGARY

Kings of the House of Árpád

1000—1038 (Saint) Stephen I
1038—1041 Peter (Orseolo)
1041—1044 Samuel Aba
1044—1046 Peter (Orseolo)
1046—1060 Andrew I
1060—1063 Béla I
1063—1074 Salamon
1074—1077 Géza I
1077—1095 (Saint) Ladislas I
1095—1116 Coloman (Beauclerc)
1116—1131 Stephen II
1131—1141 Béla (Blind) II
1141—1162 Géza II
1162—1172 Stephen III
1162—1163 Ladislas II
1163—1165 Stephen IV
1172—1196 Béla III
1196—1204 Emeric
1204—1205 Ladislas III
1205—1235 Andrew II
1235—1270 Béla IV
1270—1272 Stephen V
1272—1290 Ladislas (the Cuman) IV
1290—1301 Andrew III

Kings from various houses 

1301—1305 Wenceslas of Bohemia (Přemysl)
1305—1307 Otto (Wittelsbach)
1307—1342 Charles (Robert) I of Anjou
1342—1882 Louis I the Great of Anjou
1382—1387/1395 Maria of Anjou
1385—1386 Charles (Small) II of Anjou
1387—1437 Sigismund of Luxembourg
1437—1439 Albert Habsburg
1440—1444 Wladislas I Jagiełło
1440/1452—1457 Ladislas V (Posthumous) Habsburg
1444—1446 (interregnum)
1446—1453 (Regent János Hunyadi)
1458—1490 Matthias Hunyadi
1490—1516 Wladislas II Jagiełło
1516—1526 Louis II Jagiełło

Kings from the House of Habsburg 

1526—1564 Ferdinand I
1526—1540 John I Szapolyai, national king
1540—1570 John Sigismund* Szapolyai
1564—1576 Maximilian I
1576—1608 Rudolf I
1605—1606 (István Bocskai**)
1608—1619 Matthias II
1619—1637 Ferdinand II
1620—1621 (Gábor Bethlen*)
1637—1657 Ferdinand III
1647—1654 Ferdinand IV
1657—1705 Leopold I
1705—1711 Joseph I
1705-1711 (Ferenc Rákóczi***)
1711—1740 Charles III
1740—1780 Maria Theresa
* elected king
** elected prince of Hungary and Transylvania
*** elected prince of Transylvania and leading prince of Hungary

Kings from the House of Habsburg—Lorraine 

1780—1790 Joseph II
1790—1792 Leopold II
1792—1835 Francis II
1835—1848 Ferdinand I
April 14 — August 11, 1849 (Lajos Kossuth, Governor-President)
1848—1916 Francis Joseph
1916—1918 Charles IV

HUNGARY'S HEADS OF STATE

President of the republic:
Count Mihály Károlyi January 11, 1919 — March 21, 1919 (resigned)

Regent:
vitéz Miklós Horthy of Nagybánya March 1, 1920 — October 16, 1944 (resigned)

Presidents of the republic:
Zoltán Tildy February 1, 1946 — August 3, 1948 (resigned on July 31, 1948)
Árpád Szakasits August 3, 1948 — August 23, 1949

Presidents of the Presidential Council:
Árpád Szakasits August 23, 1949 — April 25, 1950 (resigned "claiming his health", he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment for life)
Sándor Rónai May 8, 1950 — August 14, 1952
István Dobi August 14, 1952 — April 14, 1967
Pál Losonczi April 14, 1967 — June 25, 1987
Károly Németh June 25, 1987 — June 29, 1988
Brunó F. Straub June 29, 1988 — October 23, 1989

Presidents of the republic:
Mátyás Szűrös (provisional) October 23, 1989 — May 2, 1990
Árpád Göncz (provisional) May 2, 1990 — August 3, 1990
Árpád Göncz August 3, 1990 — August 3, 2000
Ferenc Mádl August 4, 2000 — August 4, 2005
László Sólyom August 5, 2005 —



 
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