Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central- and Southeastern Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula (Wikitravel), on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory: Lonely Planet. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south. Romania emerged as a personal union of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia under prince Alexander John Cuza in 1859 and as the Kingdom of Romania under the Hohenzollern monarchy, it gained recognition of independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. In 1918, at the end of the World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Republic of Moldova) were occupied by the Soviet Union and Romania became a socialist republic, member of the Warsaw Pact. With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the 1989 Revolution, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms. After a decade of post-revolution economic problems, Romania made economic reforms such as low flat tax rates in 2005 and joined the European Union on January 1, 2007. Romania is now an upper-middle income country with high human development, although within the European Union, Romania’s income level remains one of the lowest. Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population (with 21.5 million people) among the European Union member states. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: Bucure?ti [buku?re?t?] , the 6th largest city in the EU with 1.9 million people. In 2007, Sibiu, a city in Transylvania, was chosen as a European Capital of Culture. Romania also joined NATO on March 29, 2004, and is also a member of the Latin Union, of the Francophonie, of the OSCE and of the United Nations, as well as an associate member of the CPLP. Romania is a semi-presidential unitary state. The name of Romania (Romanian: România) comes from Romanian: român which is a derivative of the Latin: Romanus (Roman). The fact that Romanians call themselves a derivative of Romanus (Romanian: Român/Rumân) is first mentioned in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia and The oldest surviving document written in the Romanian language is a 1521 letter known as “Neac?u’s Letter from Câmpulung”. This document is also notable for having the first occurrence of “Rumanian” in a Romanian written text, Wallachia being here named The Rumanian Land – ?eara Rumâneasc? (?eara from the Latin: Terra land). In the following centuries, Romanian documents use interchangeably two spelling forms: român and rumân. Socio-linguistic evolutions in the late 17th century led to a process of semantic differentiation: the form “rumân”, presumably usual among lower classes, got the meaning of “bondsman”, while the form român kept an ethno-linguistic meaning. After the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the form “rumân” gradually disappears and the spelling definitively stabilises to the form “român”, “românesc”. Tudor Vladimirescu, a revolutionary leader of the early 19th century, used “Rumânia” to refer exclusively to the principality of Wallachia, the southern part of modern Romania. The name “România” as common homeland of all Romanians is documented in the early 19th century. This name has been officially in use since December 11, 1861. English-language sources still used the terms “Rumania” or “Roumania”, borrowed from the French spelling “Roumanie”, as recently as World War II, but since then those terms have largely been replaced with the official spelling “Romania”. The oldest modern human remains in Europe were discovered in the “Cave With Bones” in present day Romania. The remains are approximately 42,000 years old and as Europe’s oldest remains of Homo sapiens, they may represent the first such people Christian book store to have entered the continent. But the earliest written evidence of people living in the territory of the present-day Romania comes from Herodotus in book IV of his Histories (Herodotus) written 440 BCE, where he writes about the Getae tribes. Dacians, considered a part of these Getae, were a branch of Thracians that inhabited Dacia (corresponding to modern Romania, Moldova and northern Bulgaria). The Dacian kingdom reached its maximum expansion during King Burebista, between 82BC – 44 BC, and soon came under the scrutiny of the neighboring Roman Empire. After the assassination of Burebista, Dacia split into 4 or 5 smaller kingdoms, the Romans conquering Moesia by 29 BC. The Dacian Wars, between 87 AD – 106 AD ended with the victory of the Romans, and the transforming of the core of the kingdom into the province of Roman Dacia. Dacia was famed for its rich ore deposits, and especially gold and silver were plentiful. Rome colonized Dacia Felix with colonists from all over the empire (“ex toto orbe Romano infinitas”) . This brought Vulgar Latin and started a period of intense romanization, that would give birth to proto-Romanian language. Nevertheless, the attacks on the province by the Goths and the free dacian tribes of Carpi between 240AD – 256AD, at which date “Dacia was lost”, Rome withdrew its administration from Dacia around 271 AD, thus making it the first province to be abandoned.Several competing theories have been generated to explain the origin of modern Romanians. Linguistic and geo-historical analysis tend to indicate that Romanians have coalesced as a major ethnic group both South and North of the Danube. For further discussion, see Origin of Romanians. Bran Castle was built in 1212, and became commonly known as Dracula’s Castle after the myths that it was the home of Vlad III the Impaler. After the Roman army and administration left Dacia, the territory was held by the Goths, then, in the 4th century by Huns. They were followed by the Gepids, Avars, Bulgars, Pechenegs, and Cumans. The Slavs also settled this land during this period. In the Middle Ages, Romanians (Vlachs) lived in three principalities: Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. Since the 11th century, Transylvania had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary with a largely autonomous status. In the year 1366, king Louis I Anjou of Hungary issued a law-and-order Decree of Turda in part explicitly targeted against the Romanians from Transylvania (presumptuosam astuciam diversorum malefactorum, specialiter Olachorum,1 in ipsa terra nostra existencium – the evil arts of many malefactors, especially Vlachs /Romanians that live in our country; exterminandum seu delendum in ipsa terra malefactores quarumlibet nacionum, signanter Olachorum – to expel or exterminate from this country malefactors belonging to any nation, especially Vlachs/Romanians). Through the same decree, Hungarian nobility (nobilis Hungarus) is partially redefined in terms of adherence to the Roman Catholic Church, thus excluding the Eastern Orthodox schismatic Romanians. Another consequence of the decree was socio-economic: the status of nobleman was determined not only by ownership over land and people, but (from 1366 on) by the purity rings possession of a royal donation certificate for the land owned. The Romanian social elite, chiefly made up of aldermen (iudices or knezes), managed to procure few writs of donation; they had ruled over their villages according to the old law of the land (ius valachicum, with its feudal version, ius keneziale); their lands were, to a great extent, expropriated. Lacking a recognized title to real property, the Eastern Orthodox Romanian elite was not able any more to maintain an Estate of their own and to participate in the country’s assemblies. Insofar as a Romanian elite was preserved, it adjusted to these circumstances by converting to Roman Catholicism and being absorbed into Hungarian Catholic aristocratic estate (nobilis Hungarus). Those Romanian ricostruzione unghie knezes (and voivods) who did not convert and could not gain the desired privileges gradually declined into the ranks of subjects or even bondsmen. A few years prior, Wallachian Romanians led by Basarab I defeated Charles I Anjou of Hungary at best acne treatment the Battle of Posada. From 1438 Transylvania was governed by the Union of used car prices Three Nations formed by the Hungarian nobility, the ethnically Hungarian Székely and Germans. In 1526 the Ottoman Empire conquered southern women seeking men and central Hungary, and Transylvania rain sounds became part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom ruled by the Habsburgs. In 1571 the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom ceased to exist, and a semi-independent Principality of cheap car insurance Transylvania came under Ottoman seo suzerainty. From 1661 onwards Transylvania came under the rule of the Habsburg Empire. Small Voivodeships with varying degrees of independence developed from the beginning of the 13th century, but only in the 14th century did the larger principalities of Wallachia (1310) and Moldavia (around 1352) consolidate enough to oppose the neighbouring Kingdom of Hungary, Polish kingdom, and the Ottoman Empire. Basarab I, Mircea the Elder, Vlad III the Impaler in Wallachia, Alexander the Good, Stephen the Great in Moldavia, developed stained concrete fort worth the Romanian countries, and fought to maintain independence at a crossroad of empires. By 1541, the entire Balkan peninsula and the central part of Hungary became Ottoman provinces. In contrast, Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania turf supplies came under Ottoman suzerainty, but conserved a great degree of internal autonomy and, until the 18th century, some external independence. During this period these countries witnessed the slow small business ideas disappearance of the feudal system; the distinguishment of rulers like Vasile Lupu and Dimitrie Cantemir in Moldavia, Matei Basarab and Constantin Brâncoveanu in Wallachia, John Hunyadi (Iancu de Hunedoara) and Gabriel Bethlen in Transylvania (Cia). Moldavia, Wallachia and local realtors Transylvania united under the rule of Michael the Brave. In 1600, the principalities of Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania were simultaneously headed by the prince of Wallachia Michael the Brave, Ban of Oltenia, but the unity Gas Fire Pit dissolved after Michael was killed, only one year later, by the soldiers of Habsburg army general Giorgio Basta. The rule of Michael the Brave is regarded in Romanian historiography as the first attempt to unite the three principalities and to learn forex lay down foundations of a single state in a territory comparable to today’s Romania. After his death, as vassal tributary states of the Ottoman Empire, Moldova and Wallachia had complete internal autonomy and short hair styles external independence, which was finally lost in the 18th century. In 1699, Transylvania became a territory of the Habsburg Monarchy, following the Austrian victory over the Ottomans in the Great Turkish War. The Austrians, in their turn, discount tents for sale rapidly expanded their empire: incorporating Oltenia (western Wallachia) in 1718, to return it in 1739, and occupying Bukovina (north-western Moldavia) in 1775. tignanello handbags. The development of the Russian Empire as a political and military power materialized in occupation of Bessarabia (eastern Moldavia) in 1812. Thereafter the Phanariot Epoch was characterized by excessive fiscal policies and spoliation of the local inhabitants determined by increased economic needs of the Turkish sultans during the Stagnation of the Ottoman Empire Pop Up Trailers and by the ambitions of some of the Greek Hospodars, who mindful of their fragile status, sought to pay back their creditors and increase their wealth while they still were in a position of power. During the period of Austro-Hungarian home insurance rule in Transylvania, and Ottoman suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, most Romanians were in the situation of being second-class citizens (or even non-citizens) in campervan hire australia a territory where they formed the majority of the population. In some Transylvanian cities, such as Bra?ov (at that time the Transylvanian Saxon citadel of Kronstadt), Romanians were not even allowed to reside within the city walls. After the failed 1848 Revolution, the Great cna certification Powers did not support the Romanians’ expressed desire to officially unite in a single state, which forced Romania to proceed alone against the Ottomans. The electors in both Moldavia and Wallachia public car auctions chose in 1859 the same person –Alexandru Ioan Cuza– as prince (Domnitor in Romanian). Thus, Romania was created as a personal union, albeit a Romania PLR Articles that did not include Transylvania. There, the upper class and the aristocracy remained mainly Hungarian, and Romanian nationalism inevitably ran up against Hungarian in the late mma training 19th century. As in the previous 900 years, Austria-Hungary, especially under the Dual Monarchy of 1867, kept the Hungarians firmly in control even in the parts of Transylvania where Romanians constituted a local majority. In a 1866 coup d’état, Cuza was exiled muscle building and replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who became known as Prince Carol of Romania. During the Russo-Turkish War Romania fought on the Russian side, and in the 1878 buy Twitter followers Treaty of Berlin, Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In kids furniture return, Romania ceded three southern districts of Bessarabia to Russia and acquired Dobruja. In 1881, the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol became King Carol I. The 1878–1914 period was one of stability and progress for Romania: BBC. During the Second Balkan War, Romania joined Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey against Bulgaria, and in the peace Treaty of Bucharest (1913) Romania gained Southern Dobrudja. The first two years of the World War I lawyers saw a neutral Romania, as its nominal alliance with the Central Powers stated Romania was to oblige only in the event Austro-Hungarian Empire was attacked; while Romania’s demands of recognition of its right to project management annex territories of Austria-Hungary with a Romanian populace were accepted by the Entente only in 1916 in the Treaty of Bucharest. The Romanian military campaign launched in August 1916 was largely unsuccessful, with Central Powers troops capturing Bucharest and occupying loan Wallachia and Dobrudja, the Romanian Army and the Russian Imperial Army defending video converter Moldova until December 1917. The collapse of the affordable seo services Russian Empire during 1917 and the disbandment of its army left Romania isolated and surrounded on the Eastern Front, and an armistice with the Central Powers was signed in December 1917. The National Council of the Moldavian Democratic motion detector alarm Republic proclaimed union with Romania on April 1918. Between May and July 1918, The Treaty of Bucharest was underway stamped concrete fort worth between German Empire and Romania with Bistro MD harsh conditions for Romania, and King Ferdinand of Romania refused to ratify it. The Hundred Days Offensive during the summer of 1918, stickers meant the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary on the Western and Italian custom band merchandise fronts, allowing Romania to renounce the treaty in October 1918. Romania re-entered the war on November 10, 1918. The next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice teeth grinding mouth guard of Compiègne. On November 15, 1918 sell my car Bukovina proclaimed union with Romania. The National Assembly of the Romanians of Transylvania proclaimed union with Romania how to cure panic attacks on December 1, 1918. The ensuing Hungarian–Romanian War of 1919 led to the destruction of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Treaty of Trianon ratified in 1920, established Transylvania under sovereignty of Kingdom of Romania. The backlinks union of Bukovina with Romania was ratified in 1919 in the Treaty backlink checker of Saint Germain, and the union of Bessarabia with Romania in 1920 by the Treaty of Paris. Total Romanian World War I casualties from 1914 to 1918, military and tatuaggi civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000. The Romanian expression România Mare (literal translation “Great Romania”, but more commonly rendered “Greater Romania”) toronto roofing generally refers to the Romanian contact lenses state in the interwar period, and by extension, to the territory Romania covered at the christening presents time (see map). Romania achieved at that time its greatest territorial extent (almost 300,000 km2/120,000 sq mi).Romania remained neutral after the start of the World War II in September 1939. The Battle of France rendered its allies France and Britain unable to help, sport supplement and on June 28, 1940, following the Soviet ultimatum which implied invasion in the event of non-compliance the Romanian administration and the Army withdrew from Bessarabia as well from Northern Bukovina and Free iPhone Hertza. Further Axis pressure lead to more territorial losses for Romania: southern Dobrogea was ceded to Bulgaria and Northern Transylvania to Hungary through the Second Vienna Award. The socio-political succession planning turmoil resulted in the abdication of Carol II of Romania, and the instalment how to get rid of love handles the National Legionary State, in which power was shared by General Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard. Tensions between the two led to a Legionary Rebellion which was promptly crushed by the Army, and Antonescu established his own dictatorship, daily deals allying Romania with Nazi Germany. In 1941 Romania entered the war against the Soviet Union on the side of the Axis powers. During the war, Romania Dubai SEO was the most important source of oil for Germany, which attracted multiple bombing raids by the Allies. The Romanian Army made a major contribution to the Axis effort on the Eastern Front, Yahoo, retaking Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and participating in major battles at Odessa, Sevastopol and Stalingrad. The Antonescu regime played a major role in the Holocaust, following to a golden wedding anniversary gifts lesser extent the Nazi policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews, and Romanies, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occupied from the Soviet Union (Transnistria) and in Moldavia. In August 1944, Antonescu was toppled and affiliate marketing arrested by King Michael I of Romania. Romania joined the Allies, but its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany was not recognized by the Paris Peace Conference of 1947. By the end of the war, the Romanian Army had suffered Hen Party about 519,000 casualties. The Paris Peace Treaties, 1947 rendered the Vienna Diktat void, and re-established Romania’s western borders. Northern Bukovina and hair loss treatment Bessarabia remained occupied by the USSR. realizzazione siti biella Jewish Holocaust victims totaled 469,000 within the 1939 borders, including 325,000 in Bessarabia and Bukovina. Anti-communist protesters during the 1989 revolution. Romania was the text message marketing only Eastern European country to violently overthrow its Communist regime. During the Soviet occupation of Romania, the Communist-dominated government called new free website templates elections, which were won with 80% of the Free iPhone 4 vote through intimidation and likely electoral fraud. They thus rapidly established themselves as the dominant political force. In 1947, the Communists forced Provillus King Michael I to abdicate and leave the country, and proclaimed Romania a people’s republic. Romania remained under the direct military occupation and economic control of the USSR until the late 1950s. offerte viaggi During this period, Romania’s vast natural resources were continuously drained by mixed Soviet-Romanian companies (SovRoms) set up for exploitative purposes. article submission In 1948, the state began to nationalize private firms (see nationalization in Romania), and to collectivize agriculture the following year (see collectivization in Romania). From the late 1940s to the early Kent Wedding Photographer 1960s, the Communist government established a reign of terror, carried out mainly through the Securitate (the new secret police). During this time they launched several campaigns to cna certification eliminate “enemies of the state”, in which numerous individuals were killed or imprisoned for arbitrary political or economic reasons. Punishment included deportation, internal exile, and internment Jobs Bridgend in forced labour camps and prisons; dissent was vigorously suppressed. A notorious experiment in this period took place in the Pite?ti prison, where a group of political opponents were put Christian Books into a program of reeducation through torture. Historical records show hundreds of thousands of abuses, deaths and incidents of torture tinnitus treatment against a wide range of people, from political opponents to ordinary citizens. In 1965, Nicolae Ceau?escu came to power and started to pursue independent policies such Innotek IUC 4100 as being the only Warsaw Pact country to condemn the Soviet-led 1968 invasion article submission of Czechoslovakia, and to continue diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six-Day War of 1967; establishing economic (1963) and diplomatic (1967) relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. Also colon cleanse , close ties with the Arab countries (and the PLO) allowed Romania to play a key role in the Israel–Egypt and Israel–PLO peace processes. But as Romania’s foreign debt sharply increased between 1977 and 1981 (from 3 to 10 billion US dollars), the influence of international financial iPhone deals organisations such as the IMF or the World Bank grew, conflicting with Nicolae Ceau?escu’s autarchic policies. He eventually initiated a project of total reimbursement of the foreign debt by imposing policies that impoverished Romanians and exhausted the Romanian economy, while also walking shoes greatly extending the authority of the police state, and imposing a cult of personality. These led to a dramatic decrease in Ceau?escu’s popularity and culminated in his overthrow and execution in the bloody Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 2006, the Presidential Commission for the Study weight loss tips of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania estimated the number of direct victims of communist repression at two million people. This number does not include people who died in liberty as a result of their treatment in communist prisons, nor does it include people who died because coats of arms of the dire economic circumstances in which the country found itself. After how to get rid of a yeast infection the revolution, the National Salvation Front, led by Ion Iliescu, took partial multi-party democratic and free market measures. Several major political parties of the pre-war era, such as the Christian-Democratic National best gaming mouse Peasants’ Party, the National Liberal Party and the Romanian Social Democrat Party were resurrected. After several major political rallies, in how to deal with panic attacks April 1990, a sit-in protest contesting the results of the recently held parliamentary elections began in University Square, Bucharest accusing the Front of wedding favors being made up of former Communists and members of the Securitate. The protesters did not recognize the results of the election, deeming them undemocratic, Contractor Marketing and asked for the exclusion from the political life of the former high-ranking Communist Party members. The protest mortgage modification rapidly grew to become an ongoing mass demonstration (known as the Golaniad). The peaceful demonstrations degenerated into violence, and the violent intervention of coal miners from the Jiu Valley led to what is remembered as the June stuffing envelopes 1990 Mineriad. The subsequent disintegration of the Front produced several political parties including the Romanian Democrat Social Party (later Social Democratic Party), the Democratic Party and the (Alliance for Romania). The first governed Albuquerque Homes for Sale Romania from 1990 until 1996 through several coalitions and governments and with Ion Iliescu as head of state. Since then there have been four democratic changes medical assistant training of government: in 1996, the democratic-liberal opposition and its leader Emil Constantinescu acceded to power; in 2000 the Social Democrats weight benches returned to power, with Iliescu once again president; and in 2004 Traian B?sescu was elected president, with an electoral coalition called Justice and Truth Alliance. B?sescu was narrowly re-elected in 2009 (FIFA).