History of Slovakia

Slovakia is a small country but it has long and rich history.
The oldest settlements arrived to the slovak territory 250 000 years ago. Borders of Roman Empire crossed this area until the 5th century and in that time the first Slavs came here. It was established the first Slavic state- Great Moravian Empire in 9th century. It is connected with arrival of two brothers Cyril and Methodius who founded the oldest Slavonic alphabet and brought Christian religion to this region. They also translated many religious texts into Slavonic.
After Hungarian invasion Slovakia became a part of Hungarian kingdom, later the Habsburg empire for early thousand years.
The 19th century saw the culmination of the Slovaks' movement for national rights. In 1943 Ľudovít Štúr codified the literary Slovak language.
In 1918 Czechs and Slovaks created the independent state the Czechoslovak Republic with the first president Tomas Garyk Masaryk. After the end of World War II, the Czechoslovak Republic became a part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Communist dictatorship ended with the Velvet Revolution of 1989, infamous Iron curtain was destroyed and the totalitarian part of the Europe was separated from the free world by the well-guarded river Danube.
On January 1st 1993 Slovakia opened up a new era of its history as a modern, independent, and democratic country. Since that time, our country has been developping and in 2004 we entered the NATO and European Union. In addition, Slovakia adopted the euro as a currency on 1 January 2009.