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8Mil BC In 2007 Hungarian
scientists discovered a group of fossilized swamp cypress trees
preserved from this time. The trees dated to the late Miocene
geological period at a time when the Carpathian basin, present day
Hungary, was a freshwater lake surrounded by swamps.
(Reuters, 7/31/07)
c0-100AD Hungary was the Roman province of Pannonia
and Pecs was the capital.
(Hem., 6/98, p.128)
375 Nov 17, Enraged by the
insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian, the Emperor of the West,
died of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe.
(HN, 11/17/98)
451 Jun 20, Roman and Barbarian
warriors halted Attila’s army at the Catalaunian Plains (Catalarinische
Fields) in eastern France. Attila the Hun was defeated by a combined
Roman and Visigothic army. The Huns moved south into Italy but were
defeated again.
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(HN, 6/20/98)(MC, 6/20/02)
451AD Sep 20, General Aetius
defeated Attila the Hun at Chalons-sur-Marne.
(MC 9/20/01)
451AD Attila the Hun was defeated
by a combined Roman and Visigothic army. The Huns moved south into
Italy but were defeated again. Attila and his brother Bleda jointly
inherited the Hunnish Kingdom, headquartered in what later became
Hungary. Attila later murdered Bleda to gain full control
(V.D.-H.K.p.88)(SFC, 5/2/98, p.E4)
896 The founding date of Hungary.
Seven tribes of Magyars settled in the Carpathian Basin. Kingdom of
Hungary was formed under Arpad by seven Magyar and three Khazar tribes.
(WSJ, 12/26/96, p.4)(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T5)(TJOK, p.
206)(Reuters, 4/12/05)
933 Mar 15, Henry the Fowler
routed the raiding Magyars at Merseburg, Germany.
(HN, 3/15/99)
955 Aug 10, Otto organized his
nobles and defeated the invading Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in
Germany.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1000 Jan 1, Stephen became the
first king of Hungary.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T5)
1038 King Stephen died.
(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A8T5)
1077 Apr 24, Geza I, King of
Hungary (1074-7), died.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1096 Jun 26, Peter the Hermit’s
crusaders forced their way across Sava, Hungary.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1096 Jul 12, Crusaders under Peter
the Hermit reach Sofia in Hungary.
(HN, 7/12/99)
1102 Coats were forced to enter
into a union with Hungary and to recognize the Hungarian king as their
own.
(WSJ, 7/14/99, p.A23)
1131 Mar 1, Stephen II, King of
Hungary (1116-31), died.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1172 Mar 4, Stephan III, King of
Hungary (1162-72), died.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1326 Mar 5, Louis I (the Great),
King of Hungary (1342-1382) and Poland (1370-1382), was born.
(HN, 3/5/98)(MC, 3/5/02)
1382 Sep 10, Louis I, the Great,
King of Hungary and Poland, died. Mary (1372-1395), daughter of Louis
I, became queen of Hungary.
(PC, 1992 ed,
p.135)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_Hungary)
1386 Sigismund (1368-1437), son of
Charles IV, became King of Hungary by his marriage to Queen Mary of
Hungary (1372-1395).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1387-1456 Janos Hunyadi, soldier and national hero.
He was the father of Matthias Corvinus.
(WUD, 1994, p.693,1672)
1396 Sep 25, The last great
Christian crusade, led jointly by John the Fearless of Nevers and King
Sigismund of Hungary, ended in disaster at the hands of Sultan Bajazet
I's Ottoman army at Nicopolis.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1397 Aug 16, Albrecht II von
Habsburg, king of Bohemia, Hungary and Germany, was born.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1420 Jul 14, Jan Zizka
(1360?-1424) led the Taborites in Battle at Vitkov Zizka's hill
(Prague). The Taborites beat forces under Sigismund, the pro-Catholic
King of Hungary and Bohemia. This was part of the Hussite Wars
(1419-1436).
(http://user.intop.net/~jhollis/janzizka.htm)
1429 Jan 10, Order of Golden
Fleece was established in Austria-Hungary & Spain.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1439 Oct 27, Albrecht II von
Habsburg (42), king of Bohemia, Hungary and Germany, died.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1440 Feb 22, Ladislaus V
Posthumous, King of Hungary and Bohemia, was born.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1444 Nov
10, During the Hungarian-Turkish War (1444-1456) , Sultan Murad II beat
the Crusaders in the Battle at Varna on the Black Sea.
(DoW, 1999, p.217)
1448 Oct 19, The Ottoman Sultan
Murat II defeated Hungarian General Janos Hunyadi at Kosovo, Serbia.
(HN, 10/19/98)
1454 Aug 22, Jews were expelled
from Brunn Moravia by order of King Ladislaus Posthumus (1440-1457),
king of Hungary as Ladislaus V, king of Bohemia as Ladislaus I.
(MC, 8/22/02)(Internet)
1456 Mar 1, Wladyslaw Jagiello,
king of Bohemia (1471-1516), Hungary (1490-1516), was born.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1456 Jul 14, Hungarians defeated
the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade, in present-day Yugoslavia. The
1456 Siege of Belgrade decided the fate of Christendom.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1456 Jul 22, At the Battle at
Nandorfehervar (Belgrade), the Hungarian army under prince Janos
Hunyadi beat sultan Murad II. The siege of Belgrade had fallen into
stalemate when a spontaneous fight broke out between a rabble of
Crusaders, led by the Benedictine monk John of Capistrano, and the
city's Ottoman besiegers. The melee soon escalated into a major battle,
during which the Hungarian commander, Janos Hunyadi, led a sudden
assault that overran the Turkish camp, ultimately compelling the
wounded Sultan Mehmet II to lift the siege and retreat.
(MC, 7/22/02)(PC, 1992, p.150)(HNPD, 7/23/98)
1456 Aug 11, Janos Hunyadi (69),
Hungarian Prince and general strategist died of plague at about age 49.
(PC, 1992, p.150)(MC, 8/11/02)
1457 Nov 23, Ladislaus V
(posthumous), king of Hungary and Bohemia, died at 17.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1458 Jan 24, Matthias Corvinus
(1443-1490), the son of John Hunyadi, was elected king of Hungary.
Under his rule Hungary was the most important state in central
Europe. For his fighting force he ordered every 20 houses to provide
one horse soldier. "Husz" is 20 in Hungarian and so the light
cavalryman became know as a Hussar. His illuminated breviary is held by
the Vatican library.
(WUD, 1994, p.1672)(Sky, 9/97, p.26)(HN, 1/24/99)
1490 Apr 6, Matthias Corvinus
(b.1443), king of Hungary and Croatia (1458-1590), died. He has
assembled one of Europe’s finest libraries, 2nd in size only to that in
the Vatican. When Hungary later fell to the Turks the library was lost.
In 2008 Marcus Tanner authored “The Raven King: Matthias Corvinus and
the Fate of His Lost Library.”
(Econ, 7/19/08,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Corvinus_of_Hungary)
1503 Mar 10, Ferdinand I, Holy
Roman Emperor (1558-1564), was born. He was King of Bohemia and Hungary
from 1526-1564.
(HN, 3/10/01)(WUD, 1994 p.523)
1514 George Dozsa, soldier of
fortune, instigated a peasant’s revolt in Hungary. He was later
captured and grilled alive.
(TL-MB, p.10)
1521 Suleiman I, the Ottoman
Sultan, conquered Belgrade and invaded Hungary.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1526 Nov 9, Jews were expelled
from Pressburg, Hungary, by Maria of Hapsburg.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1526 Ferdinand of Austria was
elected King of Bohemia and inaugurated the Austro-Hungarian state.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(WSJ, 7/14/99, p.A23)
1529 May 27, 30 Jews of Posing,
Hungary, charged with blood ritual, were burned at stake.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1529 Sep 8, The Ottoman Sultan
Suleiman re-entered Buda and established John Zapolyai as the puppet
king of Hungary.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1529 The Ottomans sieged Vienna in
a key battle of world history. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak with
the Turks settled in Buda on the left bank of the Danube after failing
in their siege of Vienna.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)
1538 Feb 24, Ferdinand of Hapsburg
and John Zapolyai, the two kings of Hungary, concluded the peace of
Grosswardein.
(HN, 2/24/99)
1541 Suleiman I annexed southern
and central Hungary. The Turkish Ottomans occupied Budapest, Hungary,
until 1546.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1544 The Turks invaded Hungary for
the third time and seized the crown jewels. (TL-MB, 1988, p.16)
1552 The Turks invaded Hungary
again with a victory at the Battle Szegedin. Istvan Dobo led the
defense of Eger against the Turks. The siege of Eger lasted 38 days.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.18)(Hem., 6/98, p.126)
1556 Sep 13, Charles V and Maria
of Hungary marched into Spain.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1575 Hungarian mines abolished
child labor.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1576 Oct 12, Rudolf II, the king
of Hungary and Bohemia, succeeded his father, Maximillian II, as Holy
Roman Emperor.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(HN, 10/12/98)
1586 The Turks attacked the
fortress at Eger again. The mercenary occupants capitulated.
(Hem., 6/98, p.126)
1595 Oct 28, Battle at Giurgevo:
Sigmund Bathory of Transylvania beat the Turks.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1619?-1637 Ferdinand ruled as king of Hungary.
(WUD, 1994, p.524)
1630 Mate Szepsy Laczko described
the method for producing Tokaj wine made from botrytized grapes.
(WSJ, 10/5/00, p.A24)
1637 Ferdinand II Holy Roman
emperor, king of Bohemia and king of Hungary, died.
(WUD, 1994, p.524)
1859 The onion-domed Great
Synagogue was erected in the Jewish quarter of Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1664 Jan 21, Count Miklos of
Zrinyi set out to battle the Turkish invasion army.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1664 Aug 1, The Turkish army was
defeated by French and German troops at St. Gotthard, Hungary.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1671 Apr 30, Peter Zrinyi (49),
Hungarian banished to Croatia, was beheaded.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1681 Nov 9, Hungarian parliament
promised Protestants freedom of religion.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1686 Jul 8, The Austrians took
Buda, Hungary, from the Turks and annexed the country. Hapsburg rule
lasted to 1918.
(HN, 7/8/98)(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1687 Aug 12, At the Battle of
Mohacs, Hungary, Charles of Lorraine defeated the Turks.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1732-1809 Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer, wrote
some 175 baritone pieces for his patron, the Hungarian prince Nickolaus
Esterhazy, who played the complex stringed instrument. The Canadian
scholar David Schroeder wrote: Haydn and the Enlightenment."
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.42)(WUD, 1994,
p.651)(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A14)
1740 Oct 20, Maria Theresa became
ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia upon the death of her father,
Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.
(AP, 10/20/06)
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen of
Hungary invented the Automoton Chess Player. It was 1st demonstrated to
the Austrian court in 1770. In 2001 the deception was analyzed by James
W. Cook in his book "The Arts of Deception." In 2002 Tom Standage
authored "The Turk," an examination of the 18th century fascination
with automatons.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/12/02, p.W12)
1795 May 20, Ignac Martinovics,
Hungarian physicist, revolutionary, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1781 May 1, Emperor Josef II
decreed protection of population.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1787 Aug 17, Jews were granted
permission in Budapest, Hungary, to pray in groups.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1802 Aug 13, Nikolaus Lenau,
German poet (Faust, Die Albigenser), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1802 Sep 19, Lajos Kossuth
(d.1894), Hungarian statesman and president, was born. "The instinctive
feeling of a great people is often wiser than its wisest men."
(AP,
7/2/97)(www.thenagain.info/WebChron/EastEurope/Kossuth.html)
1811 Franz Liszt was born near
Sopron. He was the son of a steward of the Esterhazy family.
(Hem., 6/98, p.128)
1818 Jul 1, Ignaz Semmelweis
(d.1865), Hungarian gynecologist, was born. He later connected childbed
fever to doctors who spread of germs due to their failure to wash their
hands. In 2003 Sherwin B. Nuland authored "The Doctors' Plague: Germs,
Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis."
(MC, 7/1/02)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M3)
1823 Mar 3, Guyla Andrássy
Sr., premier of Hungary (1867-71), was born.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1846 May 29, Albert Gyorgy, earl
Apponyi, Hungarian minister of Education, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1847 Apr 10, American newspaper
publisher Joseph Pulitzer (d.1911) was born in Mako, Hungary. "What is
everybody's business is nobody's business -- except the journalist's."
(CFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 4/10/97)(AP, 8/30/98)
1848 Mar 3, Lajos Kossuth made a
speech demanding parliamentary government for Hungary and
constitutional government for the rest of Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1848 Mar 15, In Hungary an
uprising against Habsburg rule began in front of the national museum in
Budapest.
(Reuters, 3/15/07)
1848 Mar 23, Hungary proclaimed
its independence of Austria.
(HN, 3/23/99)
1848 Nov, Emperor Ferdinand
abdicated in favor of Franz Joseph.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_of_Austria)
1848 Sep 28, Lajos Kossuth,
finance minister, assumed control of the revolution in Hungary.
(www.thenagain.info/WebChron/EastEurope/Kossuth.html)
1848-1849 Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) led a failed
revolt for Hungarian independence.
(Sm, 3/06, p.81)
1849 Apr 14, Lajos Kossuth was
named Governor and virtual dictator of the newly declared Hungarian
Republic. Hungary proclaimed independence from the Great Church in
Debrecen, temporarily ending 150 years of Hapsburg rule.
(Hem., 6/98,
p.125)(www.thenagain.info/WebChron/EastEurope/Kossuth.html)
1849 Jun 17, Russian troops
invaded Hungary.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.448)
1849 Aug 11, Lajos Kossuth
abdicated in favor of Gen. Gorgey as Russia intervened in the Hungarian
revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1849 Aug 13, Hungary’s Gen. Gorgey
surrendered to the Russian forces. Russia gave Hungary back to Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed,
p.448)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1853 Vilmos Zsolnay founded a
pottery in Pecs, Hungary, that became renowned for its colored tile.
The Zsolnay factory used a 5-tower mark from about 1878, which
symbolized the 5 medieval churches in Pecs.
(SFC, 8/31/05, p.G3)
1854 Elisabeth of Bavaria (16)
married the Habsburg Emp. Franz Josef II (23).
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A13)
1855 Oct 12, Arthur Nikisch, later
conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, was born in Szent-Miklos, Hungary.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1860 Apr 8, Istvan Szechenyi
(b.1791), Hungarian statesman, committed suicide.
(WSJ, 3/13/09,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Sz%C3%A9chenyi)
1861 Imre Madach (1823-1864),
Hungarian writer, authored “The Tragedy of Man,” a “Paradise Lost” for
the industrial age.
(Econ, 12/19/09,
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Mad%C3%A1ch)
1865 Aug 13, Ignaz Semmelweis
(47), Hungarian gynecologist, died. [see Jul 1, 1818]
(MC, 8/13/02)
1865 Sep 23, Emmuska Orczy
(d.1947), baroness and writer, was born in Tarnaors, Hungary. Her
family moved to London in 1880. Her books included "The Scarlet
Pimpernel" (1905).
(HN,
9/23/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroness_Orczy)
1867-1994 In 1995 "A History of Modern Hungary" by
Joerg K. Hoensch covered this period and was translated by Kim Traynor.
2nd edition. New York and London: Longman.
(http://h-net2.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=14189848616848)
1869 Mark Pick founded a sausage
company in Szeged.
(SFC, 3/21/97, p.D2)
1870 The Gerbeaud confectioner
opened on Vaci Utca, a pedestrian street in Pest.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T5)
1870-1948 Franz Lehar, composer of operettas. His
work included "The Merry Widow."
(WUD, 1994, p.819)(WSJ, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1873 Jan 7, Adolph Zukor, movie
producer, director, executive (Paramount), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1873 Nov 20, Budapest was formed
from 2 Rival cities, Buda and Obuda on the west bank of the Danube and
Pest on the east bank.
(WUD, 1994, p.193)(MC, 11/20/01)
1874 Mar 24, Harry Houdini
(d.1926), magician, escape artist, was born as Erik Weisz (Ehrich
Weiss) in Budapest. Young Ehrich Weiss emigrated with his parents to
New York and then to Wisconsin (1878). Sometime around 1891 he and a
partner in a magic act billed themselves as the Brothers Houdini, in
homage to French magician Eugène Robert-Houdin. As Harry
Houdini, Weiss became world-famous for his mind-boggling escapes. At
age 43 he had a volcanic love affair with the widow of Jack London,
Charmian. In 1996 Kenneth Silverman wrote the biography: "Houdini!!!
The Career of Ehrich Weiss."
(WSJ, 10/29/96, p.A21)(HN, 3/24/98)(SFC, 7/7/98,
p.B3)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A10)(HNQ, 5/16/99)
1877 Jul 27, Ernst von Dohnanyi,
composer (Message to Posterity), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1878 Jan 12, Ferenc Molnar,
Hungarian-US playwright (A Pal Utrai Fiuk), was born.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1878 Bosnia came under
Austro-Hungarian. This continued until 1918. A representative from
Vienna governed the area.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.65)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.72)
1879 The Tisza River overflowed
and destroyed 5,500 of 5,800 houses in the town of Szeged.
(Hem., 6/98, p.127)
1882 Oct 20, Bela Lugosi (d.1956),
film actor, was born in Lugos, Hungary, as Bela Blasko. He is famous
for his portrayal of Count Dracula (1931).
(Internet)
1884 The Hungarian State Opera
House in Budapest was built in Italian Renaissance style.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T4)
1885 Apr 16, Leo Weiner, composer
(Fasching), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1888 Dec 19, Fritz Reiner, US
conductor (Chicago Symphony Orch), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1892 Mar 29, Jozsef Mindszenty,
[Joseph Prehm], Hungarian cardinal, was born.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1892 Sep 5, Joseph Szigeti,
Budapest Hungary, violinist (Violinist Notebook 1933), was born.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1894 Mar 20, Lajos Kossuth (91),
Hungarian freedom fighter, president (1849), died.
(www.thenagain.info/WebChron/EastEurope/Kossuth.html)
1895 May 26, Paul Lukas, actor
(Watch on the Rhine, Sphynx), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1895 The Central Market Hall was
built in Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.82)
1896 The first subway in Europe
was installed under Andrassy Ut in downtown Pest.
(WSJ, 12/26/96, p.A4)
1897 Jun 7, George Szell,
conductor (Metropolitan 1942-45), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(SC, 6/7/02)
1897 The 500 foot long Central
Market Hall in Budapest opened.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T5)
1898 Sep 10, Empress Elisabeth of
Bavaria (60), Queen of Hungary and wife of Emp. Franz Josef II, was
assassinated in Geneva by the Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni.
(EWH, 1968, p.744)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A13)
1899 Nov 18, Music conductor
Eugene Ormandy was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(AP, 11/18/99)
1900 Jan 5, Dennis Gabor,
Hungarian-British physicist, inventor of 3D laser photography, was
born. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1971. [see Jan 5]
(HN, 6/5/98)(MC, 1/5/02)
1900 Jan 13, To combat Czech
nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decreed that
German would be the language of the imperial army.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1901 Apr 29, Anti Semitic riot
took place in Budapest.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1902 Mar 23, Kálmán
Tisza (71), premier of Hungary (1875-90), died.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1902 Jun 23, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy renewed the Triple Alliance for a 12 year
duration.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1902 Nov 17, Eugene Paul Wigner,
Hungarian-born mathematician and physicist, was born. He won the Nobel
Prize in 1963.
(HN, 11/17/00)(MC, 11/17/01)
1903 Jan 3, The Bulgarian
government renounced the treaty of commerce tying it to
Austro-Hungarian empire.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1903 Feb 19, The Austria-Hungary
government decreed a mandatory two year military service.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1903 The Gresham Palace Hotel was
completed in Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.81)
1905 Sep 5, Arthur Koestler
(d.1983), Hungarian novelist and essayist, was born. He wrote about
communism in “Darkness at Noon” (1941) and “The Ghost in the Machine.”
(HN, 9/5/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 8/26/06,
p.P8)
1905 Oct 14, Eugene Fodor,
Hungarian-born travel writer, was born.
(HN, 10/14/00)
1905 The neo-Gothic Parliament
building was constructed in Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)
1906 Jun 26, Ferenc Szisz of
Hungary won the first French Grand Prix. Szisz won the race in a 13
liter, 90 horsepower Renault.
(HNQ, 7/25/00)(AHDD, p.262)
1906 Dec 2, Peter Carl Goldmark
(d.1977), engineer, was born in Budapest, Hungary. He developed the
first commercial color television and the long-playing phonograph
record.
(HN, 12/2/00)(AP, 12/2/06)
1907 Apr 18, Miklos Rozsa, movie
composer (Atomic Cafe, Fedora), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1908 Jan 15, Edward Teller
(d.2003), US physicist known as the "Father of the H-bomb," was born in
Budapest. In 2001 he authored his "Memoirs."
(HN, 1/15/99)(WSJ, 10/30/01, p.A21)(SFC, 9/10/03,
p.A1)
1908 Feb 1, Movie producer and
animator George Pal was born in Austria-Hungary.
(AP, 2/1/08)
1908 Victor Vasarely, the father
of op art, was born in Pecs.
(Hem., 6/98, p.128)
1909 Feb 16, Serbia mobilized
against Austria and Hungary.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1909 Mar 8, Pope Pius X lifted the
church ban on interfaith marriages in Hungary.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1909 Ferenc Molnar (1878-1952),
Hungarian dramatist and writer, wrote “Liliom,” which later was turned
into the musical “Carousel” (1945). During WWII he emigrated to the US.
(SFC, 12/31/08,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Molnar)
1910 May 28, Kalman Mikszath
(b.1847), Hungarian satirical novelist, died.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)(www.imdb.com/name/nm0586690/)
1912 Oct 21, Georg Solti,
conductor (Fidelio), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1913 Oct 18, Austrian-Hungary
demanded that Serbia and Albania leave.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1913 Andre de Toth (d.2002), film
director, was born in Mako, Hungary, as Sasvrai Farkasfalvi Tothfalusi
Toth Endre Antal Mihaly.
(SFC, 11/1/02, p.A28)
1914 Jul 23, Austria and Hungary
issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke
Ferdinand; the dispute led to World War I.
(AP, 7/23/98)
1914 Jul 26, Austrian-Hungary
condemned a Serbian ultimatum.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1914 Jul 28, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, beginning World War I. The New York Stock
Exchange closed for 4 1/2 months.
(CFA, '96, p.50)(HN, 7/28/98)
1914 Aug 12, Great Britain
declared war on Austria-Hungary.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1915 Jan 2, Karl Goldmark (84),
Austria-Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1915 May 23, Italy declared war on
Austria-Hungary in World War I.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1916 Nov 21, Franz Jozef I, King
of Austria and Hungary, died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1916 Charles I took the throne and
worked for peace as the Austro-Hungarian empire neared its end. He
abdicated at the end of the war in 1918 and died in Portugal in 1922 at
age 34. In 2003 the Vatican attributed a miracle to the last emperor of
Austria-Hungary, paving the way for the eventual beatification and
sainthood of Charles I.
(AP, 12/21/03)
1917 Dec 7, The US declared war on
Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress and became
the 13th country to do so.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1918 Mar 3, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World War
I. Germany and Austria forced Soviet Russia to sign the Peace of Brest,
which called for the establishment of 5 independent countries: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
which ended Russian participation in World War I, was annulled by the
November 1918 armistice. The treaty deprived the Soviets of White
Russia.
(HN, 3/3/99)(LHC, 3/1/03)(AP, 3/3/08)
1918 Oct 18, Czechs seized Prague,
renounced Hapsburg's rule and declared independence from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Masaryk proclaimed the foundation of
Czechoslovakia from Pittsburgh, Pa.
(HN, 10/18/98)(http://tinyurl.com/856hg)
1918 Oct 31, Stephen Tisza,
Hungarian PM (-1917), was assassinated by soldiers.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 The Gellert Pool was
constructed at the Gellert Hotel on the Buda side of Budapest, Hungary.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T1,4)(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1919 Jan 27, Endre Ady (b.1877),
Hungarian lyric poet, died.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ady.htm)
1919 Feb
11, Eva Gabor (d.1995), actress, was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001247/)
1919 Aug 1, In Hungary Bela Kun's
government fell in the face of invasions from both the Czechs,
Romanians and a French-sponsored counter-revolutionary force, led by
Admiral Miklos Horthy de Nagybanya, which succeeded in establishing
Horthy in government for many years.
(www.firstworldwar.com/bio/kun.htm)
1920 Jun 4, The Treaty of
Trianon, signed at Versailles, was forced upon Hungary by the
victorious Allies after WWII and resulted in Hungary giving up nearly
three-fourths of its territory to Romania, Czechoslovakia and the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes. Hungary lost more than half its
population, including some 3 million Hungarians. Hungary ceded the
hills of Transylvania to Romania.
(HNQ, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 1/2/97,
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)
1921 Nov 5, Gyorgy Cziffra,
Hungarian-French pianist, was born.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1922 Apr 1, Karl I (b.1887),
leader of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, died. Also known in the West as
Charles I, he took the throne in 1916 and worked for peace, abdicating
at the end of World War I, a few years before his death. In 2004 he was
beatified by Pope John Paul VI.
(AP, 10/3/04)(www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/KarlI/)
1922 Oct 31, Andras Hegedues
(d.1999), made Premier in 1955, was born in Szilsarkany.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1922 Their was a rainfall of
spiders over Hungary.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1923 Dutch physicist Dirk Coster
(1889-1950) and Hungarian chemist George Charles de Hevesy (1889-1966)
found element 72, Hafnium. It was identified in zircon (a zirconium
ore) from Norway, by means of X-ray spectroscopic analysis. It was
named in honor of the city in which the discovery was made, from the
Latin name "Hafnia" meaning "Copenhagen."
(www.chemistryexplained.com/elements/C-K/Hafnium.html)(http://tinyurl.com/kj24t)
1924 Jul 5, Janos Starker, cellist
(Chic Symph 1953-58), was born in Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1924 Ferenc Molnar (b.1878),
Hungarian playwright, wrote "The Play’s the Thing."
(WSJ, 5/2/96, p.A-13)
1925 Jul 17, Laszlo Nagy,
Hungarian poet, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1927 Erno Laszlo (1891-1973)
opened the Laszlo Institute for Scientific Cosmetology in Budapest. In
1939 he opened the Laszlo Institute on Fifth Ave in NYC.
(Econ, 11/29/03, p.18)
1928 Feb 1, Tom Lantos, a Jewish
Holocaust survivor, was born in Budapest, Hungary. Lantos later earned
a doctorate in economics at UC Berkeley and served as a US Congressman
from California (1980-2008).
(SFC, 1/3/08, p.A10)
1929 Aug 28, Istvan Kertesz,
conductor (Budapest Opera 1953-57/London Philharmonic), was born in
Budapest, Hungary.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1929 In Nagyrev, Hungary, some 40
men were poisoned by their wives or daughters-in-law with arsenic laced
duck soup, tea and wine. 6 local women were sentenced to die, but only
2 were executed. The midwife ringleader, who extracted the arsenic from
flypaper, committed suicide. The 2003 Hungarian film “Hiccup” was based
on the poisonings.
(WSJ, 5/20/04, p.A1)
1930 George Soros, billionaire,
was born in Budapest.
(SFEC, 10/1/96, p.A1)
1934 Oct 9, In Marseilles, a
Macedonian revolutionary associated with Croat terrorists in Hungary
assassinated King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister
Louis Barthou. The two had been on a tour of European capitals in quest
of an alliance against Nazi Germany. The assassinations brought the
threat of war between Yugoslavia and Hungary, but confrontation was
prevented by the League of Nations.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1935 Denes Koromzay (d.2001 at 88)
founded the Hungarian String Quartet. In 1962 he moved to Boulder,
Colorado, and the group was named resident ensemble at the Univ. of
Colorado.
(SFC, 7/18/01, p.C16)
1936 Mar 8, Gabor Szabo, Hungarian
jazz pianist (Perfect Circle), was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1936 Mar 23, Italy, Austria and
Hungary signed Pact of Rome.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1936 Bela Kun (b.1886), Hungarian
leftist revolutionary, died. He is believed to have met his end in one
of Stalin's innumerable purges.
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)(www.firstworldwar.com/bio/kun.htm)
1937 A Hungarian brigade joined
the Spanish civil war to fight the fascists.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.4)
1938 Apr 27, King Zog of Albania
married Geraldine Apponyi (22) of Hungary.
(SFC, 10/28/02, p.A17)
1938 Sep 29, British, French,
German and Italian leaders signed the Munich Agreement, which was aimed
at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of
Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, inhabited by a German-speaking minority.
The treaty ceded three areas of Czechoslovakia to other powers: the
Sudetenland was annexed into Germany, the Teschen district was given to
Poland, and parts of Slovakia went to Hungary. British PM Neville
Chamberlain gained a brief peace agreement from Hitler at Munich and
without consulting the Czechs agreed that Nazi forces could occupy
Sudetenland. Some mark this "appeasement policy" as the decisive event
of the century. Chamberlain predicted "peace in our time." French PM
Edouard Daladier was very depressed from the meeting. In 1980 Telford
Taylor published "Munich: The Price of Peace." It is a detailed
political & diplomatic history of the 1930's in Europe, culminating
in the Munich conference. Taylor later helped write the rules for
Nuremberg Trials. In 2008 David Vaughan authored “Battle for the
Airwaves: Radio and the 1938 Munich Crises.”
(http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Chlup/chluplinks/munich.html)(SFC,
6/9/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 6/16/96, Z1 p.6)(WSJ, 6/8/98, p.A21)(AP,
9/29/06)(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.115)
1938 Lazlo Biro [Laszlo Biro] of
Hungary invented the ball-point pen. He fled Hungary in 1943 and
patented the ballpoint in Argentina.
(TL, 1988, p.111)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1939 Feb 2, Hungary broke
relations with the Soviet Union.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1939 Feb 24, Hungary signed an
anti-Communist pact with Italy, Germany and Japan.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1939 Mar 15, The Republic of
Carpatho-Ukraine, led by Avhustyn Voloshyn (d.1945), declared
independence amid the Nazi dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.
Independence ending that same evening by an invasion from Hungary. In
1946 the area became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
as the Zakarpattia Oblast ('Transcarpathian Oblast'). After the
break-up of the Soviet Union, it became part of independent Ukraine as
Zakarpattia Oblast.
(Econ, 3/14/09,
p.57)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpatho-Ukraine)
1939 Nov 30, Bela Kun (53),
[Balazs Kolozsvary], Hungarian revolutionary, died.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1939-1945 The Hungarian Gendarmerie carried out
orders to round up Jews for Nazi death camps where some 550,000
perished.
(SFC, 2/25/00, p.A16)
1940 Sister Ida Peterfy (d.2000 at
77) founded a religious education order of nuns. She kept the order
together during the war under the cover of a secretarial school and
moved to Los Angeles in 1956.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)
1940 Bela Bartok, Hungarian
composer, fled Budapest, Hungary, and arrived in New York.
(WSJ, 8/18/95, p.A-1)
1941 Apr 3, Pal Teleki-von Szek
(61), PM Hungary (1920-21, 39-41), committed suicide.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1941 Aug 2, Jews were expelled
from Hungarian Ruthenia.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1941 Arthur Koestler (1905-1983),
Hungarian novelist and essayist, authored “Darkness at Noon,” a story
of life in Stalin’s Russia.
(HN, 9/5/98)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 8/26/06,
p.P8)
1942 Jan 23, At Novi Sad, Serbia,
some 1200 people (predominantly Jewish), rounded up over a period of
three days, were shot along the shores of the Danube. Their bodies were
dumped into the frozen waters. Sandor Kepiro (b.1914), a Hungarian
gendarmerie officer, participated in the mass murder. In 1944 he was
sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the atrocities, but
conviction was later annulled.
(http://tinyurl.com/o5n5j3)(AP, 9/15/09)
1942 Sep 4, Soviet planes bombed
Budapest in the war's first air raid on the Hungarian capital.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1942 The novel "Embers" by Sandor
Marai was published in Budapest. Marai committed in San Diego in 1989.
An English translation was published in 2001.
(WSJ, 10/26/01, p.W10)
1943 Dec 11, U.S. Secretary of
State, Cordell Hull, demanded that Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria
withdraw from the war.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1943 Laszlo Biro, fled his native
Hungary to Argentina, where he patented his ballpoint pen. England soon
manufactured some 30,000 pens for use by RAF navigators in
unpressurized cockpits, where fountain pens failed.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1944 Mar 19, Nazi German soldiers
occupied Hungary.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1944 Mar 31, Hungary ordered all
Jews to wear yellow stars.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1944 Apr-Jul, Hungarian
authorities facilitated the deportation of some 437,000 Hungarian Jews
to Auschwitz.
(SFC, 6/7/99, p.A9)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.48)
1944 May 16, The 1st of over
180,000 Hungarian Jews reached Auschwitz.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1944 Jun 30, A US B-24H bomber
nicknamed "Miss Fortune," which was returning from a mission in Germany
to its base in Italy, flew into bad weather with 3 others and were shot
down by German gunners over western Hungary. The remains of Staff Sgt.
Martin F. Troy, the tail gunner on the “Miss Fortune,” were recovered
in 2007.
(AP, 8/11/07)
1944 Jun, The "Kasztner Train,"
with 1,684 Jews on board, departed Budapest for the safety of neutral
Switzerland. Rudolf Kasztner's negotiations also saved 20,000 Hungarian
Jews by diverting them to an Austrian labor camp instead of a planned
transfer to extermination camps. Kasztner, a Zionist leader in Hungary,
headed the Relief and Rescue Committee, a small Jewish group that
negotiated with Nazi officials to rescue Hungarian Jews in exchange for
money, goods and military equipment.
(AP, 7/23/07)
1944 Jul 9, Raoul Wallenberg, a
Swedish National Guardsman, arrived in Budapest to head the local
office of the US-sponsored War Refugee Board. He had been recruited in
June by a US Embassy official in Stockholm and sent to Nazi-controlled
Budapest under Swedish diplomatic cover. He used US funds to bribe Nazi
officials and saved over 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)(WSJ,
2/28/09, p.A7)
1944 Jul 13, Erno Rubik, inventor
(Rubik's cube), was born in Budapest.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1944 Jul 19, Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg 1st met SS ober Sturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Oct 6, Soviets marched into
Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1944 Oct 16, In Hungary the Horthy
government fell and Nazi Count Szalasi became premier.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1944 Oct 23, Soviet army invaded
Hungary.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1944 Oct, In Hungary Eduard
Benedek Brunschweiler, a Swiss representative of the International Red
Cross, took charge of the Pannonhalma Abbey and kept it under Red Cross
protection until Soviet forces expelled him in April 1945. Some 3,000
people, mostly children, spent the end of the war in the abbey,
including dozens of Jews. In 2006 Hungarian officials unveiled a
memorial at the abbey honoring Brunschweiler.
(AP, 10/16/06)
1944 Oct, Ferencz Szalasi, leader
of the extremist right-wing organization Arrow Cross, was put in charge
of the Hungary by the occupying Germans when the Hungarian government
sought an armistice with the Soviet Union.
(HNQ, 5/7/99)
1944 Nov 3, Pro-German government
of Hungary fled.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1944 Nov
7, Hannah Senesh (23), Jewish poet, was executed by Nazis in Budapest.
Hannah Szenes was tortured for several months by the Gestapo before
being executed by the Nazis because she was a member of the Jewish
underground.
(www.jbuff.com/c031303.htm)
1944 Nov 8, 25,000 Hungarian Jews
were "loaned" to Nazis for forced labor.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1944 Nov 8, In Hungary Peter
Balazs (18) was fatally beaten to death for failing to wear a yellow
star marking him as a Jew. In 2009 Australia agreed to extradite
Charles Zentai (87) to face charges regarding the fatal beating of
Balazs.
(SSFC, 2/15/09,
p.A4)(www.shalom-magazine.com/Article.php?id=480310)(AP, 11/12/09)
1944 Dec 3, Hungarian death march
of Jews ended.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1944 Dec 15, In Hungary a gold
train departed Budapest on orders from Adolf Eichmann. In May it was
intercepted by American forces in Austria. Some of the valuables were
requisitioned by US commanders and the rest was later auctioned in NY
and the proceeds given to a UN agency to help Jewish refugees. Kenneth
Alford later authored "The Spoils of World War II."
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.A18)
1944 Dec 26, Advancing Soviet
troops surrounded Budapest.
(HN, 12/26/98)
1944 Dec 27, Sister Sara Salkahazi
was killed by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian allies of the Nazis, for
hiding Jews in a Budapest building used by her religious order, the
Sisters of Social Service. In 2006 she was beatified by Pope Benedict
XVI.
(AP, 9/18/06)
1944 In Hungary Sandor Kepiro
(b.1914) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his part in the Jan,
1942, atrocities at Novi Sad, Serbia, in which 1,200 Serb and Jewish
civilians were killed by Hungarian forces, who raided Serbia in the
wake of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia. He was freed by Hungary's
fascist regime shortly after his trial and fled to Argentina after the
war. In 1946, the Communist government of Hungary tried him again and
sentenced him to 14 years in absentia. He returned to Budapest in 1996.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/world/europe/28iht-hungary.2970014.html?_r=1)(AP,
9/15/09)
1944 Some 150,000 Hungarian troops
fought under Nazi command at the Don River. The Red army killed about
90,000 and thousands died trying to walk back to Hungary.
(SFC, 8/12/00, p.A11)
1944 Elemerne Marsovsky (aka Foto
Ada), a Hungarian photographer, disappeared, presumably a victim of the
Holocaust.
(SFC, 5/14/98, p.E3)
1944-1956 The apartment building at 60 Andrassy Blvd.
in Budapest was used by the fascist Arrow Cross Party from 1944-1945.
The party was responsible for the deportation or execution of some
500,000 Hungarian Jews. It was then taken over by the Communist secret
police until 1956. The basement was used for torture. It was later
converted to a museum named the "House of Torture."
(SFC, 6/14/02, p.E1)
1945 Jan 17, Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews,
disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Raoul Wallenberg was
jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy. He had
saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. Wallenberg
was a graduate of the Univ. of Michigan and studied there from
1931-1935.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(AP, 1/17/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)
1945 Jan 18, The German Army
launched its second attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest
from the advancing Red Army.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1945 Jan 20, The Allies signed a
truce with the Hungarians.
(HN, 1/20/99)
1945 Jan 24, A German attempt to
relieve the besieged city of Budapest was finally halted by the Soviets.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1945 Feb 13, During World War II,
the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans ending a
50-day siege in which 159,000 people died.
(HN, 2/13/98)(AP, 2/13/98)(MC, 2/13/02)
1945 Feb 14, The siege of Budapest
ended as the Soviets took the city. Only 785 German and Hungarian
soldiers managed to escape.
(HN, 2/14/99)
1945 Mar 14, Sgt. 1st Class Marvin
Steinford, a native of Iowa, was part of a 10-man crew of a B-17 bomber
which was hit, while returning to its base in Italy from a mission over
Hungary. In 2004 his remains were found in a grave in the town on Zirc
in western Hungary, where he had been buried with 26 Soviet soldiers.
In 2009 his remains were returned to the US.
(AP, 8/4/09)
1945 Apr 4, Hungary was liberated
from Nazi occupation (National Day).
(MC, 4/4/02)
1945 May, In Austria US Army
officers and troops plundered a “gold train” on its way to Germany from
Hungary that carried gold, jewels, paintings and other valuables seized
by the Nazis from Jewish families. A 2001 suit filed in Miami said the
army falsely classified it as unidentifiable and enemy property, which
avoided having to return the goods to their rightful owners. The suit
alleged that the US made no effort to return the goods and lied to
Hungarian Jews who sought information about their property after the
war. In 2004 the property was estimated to be worth ten times its
original $200 million valuation. In 2005 the US government reached a
$25.5 million settlement with families of the Hungarian Holocaust
victims for distribution to needy Holocaust survivors.
(AP, 12/20/04)(SFC, 3/12/05, p.A5)
1945 Sep 25, Bela Bartok,
Hungarian composer, died at 64. [see Sep 26]
(MC, 9/25/01)
1945 Sep 26, Bela Bartok,
Hungarian pianist and composer, died at 64. [see Sep 25]
(MC, 9/26/01)
1945 The AVO, Hungary’s State
Security Agency, was formed under Soviet masters. Its first leader was
a Hungarian called Gabor Peter. The role of the AVO was to hunt out
anyone who was even vaguely against the rule of Moscow over Hungary.
(www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hungarian_secret_police.htm)
1945-1990 The era of the Soviet occupation.
(WSJ, 12/27/96, p.A5)
1946 Feb. 1, Hungary declared
itself a republic.
(G&M, 2/1/96, p.A-2)
1946 Jul, Hungary’s hyperinflation
peaked at 42 quadrillion per cent a month.
(http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/inflation_history_Zimbabwe_USA_101620073)(Econ,
7/19/08, p.57)
1946 George Mikes (1912-1987), a
Hungarian living in England, published “How to Be An Alien.” It was
about a foreigner’s view of England.
(Econ, 12/19/09, p.110)
1946 Prime Minister Laszlo
Bardossy was executed for his role in the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Jews.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)
1947 May 31, Communists grabbed
power in Hungary.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1948 Oct 24, Franz Lehar,
Austrian-Hungarian composer (Wiener Frauen), died at 78.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1948 Dec 26, Hungarian Cardinal
Mindszenty was arrested.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1949 Feb 8, Cardinal Mindszenty
was sentenced to life imprisonment for high treason.
(TOH, 1982, p.1949)
1949 May 15, A general election
with open voting gave complete victory to the Communist controlled
National Independence Front.
(EWH, 1968, p.1188)
1949 May-Dec, Hungarian Communists
were victorious at the polls. They purged their opponents, proclaimed a
new constitution, nationalized all major industries, and announced a
five-year plan.
(WUD, 1994, p.1684)
1949 Jun 16, Laszlo Rajk, the
Hungarian Communist foreign minister, was arrested on charges of
conspiracy. This set off a purge of Hungarian Communists accused of
deviating from the Soviet line.
(EWH, 1968, p.1188)
1949 Aug 7, Hungary announced a
new constitution, similar to that of the Soviet Union.
(EWH, 1968, p.1188)
1949 Oct 15, Laszlo Rajk,
Hungarian Sec. of State and Foreign minister, was hanged.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1949 Dec 28, Hungary decreed the
nationalization of all major industries and announced the start of a
5-year plan.
(EWH, 1968, p.1188)
1951 Nov 9, Sigmund Romberg (64),
Hungarian-US composer (Blossom Time), died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1951 Nov 26, Illona Staller,
Italian member of Parliament (La Cicciolina), was born in Budapest,
Hungary.
(MC, 11/26/01)(AP, 11/26/02)
1951 Dec 28, The U.S. paid
$120,000 to free four fliers convicted of espionage in Hungary.
(HN, 12/28/98)
1953 Jul 4, Imre Nagy succeeded
Matyas Rkosi as premier of Hungary.
(Maggio)
1954 Mar 21, Paul Selenyi
(b.1884), Hungarian physicist, died in Budapest. He was the first to
record images with an electrostatic marking process. This was the
foundation for Chester Carlson’s Xerox copiers.
(www.thehungarypage.com/sciencemathandtech.htm)
1954 Mar 24, Britain opened trade
talks with Hungary.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1954 Jul 4, West Germany beat
Hungary 3-2 to win the 5th World Cup soccer match in Bern, Switz.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_World_Cup)
1955 Mar 20, Count Mihaly Karolyi
(b.1875), a nationalist who helped form modern Hungary’s 1st government
(1918), died.
(Sm, 3/06,
p.79)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9044761)
1955 May 14, Representatives from
eight Communist bloc countries: Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland & Romania, signed the
Warsaw Pact in Poland. Andras Hegedues signed for Hungary.
(AP, 5/14/97)(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)(MC, 5/14/02)
1955 Andras Hegedues (1922-1999)
became Hungary's youngest premier.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1956 Oct 23, An anti-Stalinist
revolt began in Hungary. As the revolution spread, Soviet forces
started entering the country, and the uprising was put down within
weeks. In 2001 Bela Liptak authored "A Testament of Revolution." In
2006 three books were published that covered Hungary’s October
Revolution: “Failed Illusions” by Charles Gati; “Journey to a
Revolution” by Michael Korda; and Viktor Sebestyen’s “Twelve Days: The
Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.”
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)(WSJ, 6/19/01, p.A20)(WSJ,
10/20/06, p.W4)(Econ, 10/21/06, p.94)(AP, 10/23/07)
1956 Oct 24, Soviet troops invaded
Hungary and Imre Nagy became PM of Hungary.
(http://tinyurl.com/yydkfe)
1956 Oct 31, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower praised the promise by Moscow made the previous day of major
concessions to Hungarians in revolt as "the dawning of a new day" in
Eastern Europe. Anti-government demonstrations in Budapest a week
earlier had forced a reshuffling of the Hungarian government and
demands that the new government denounce the Warsaw Pact and seek
liberation from Soviet domination.
(HNQ, 10/1/99)
1956 Nov 2, Hungary appealed for
UN assistance against Soviet invasion. The Soviets chose Janos Kadar to
form a counter-government.
(http://tinyurl.com/yydkfe)
1956 Nov 4, Russian troops and
tanks attacked Budapest and crushed the Hungarian revolt under Premier
Imre Nagy. Soviet troops marched into the country. Martial law was
proclaimed and mass arrests followed. The UN censured the USSR. The
repression was organized by Yuri Andropov who later became Chief of the
KGB in 1967. 25,000 people were killed. Janos Kadar was installed by
the Soviet Union as head of Hungary's Communist Party.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 10/23/96, p.A8)(WSJ,
12/27/96, p.A5)(AP, 5/22/98)
1956 Nov 8, UN demanded USSR leave
Hungary.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1956 Nov 14, The Hungarian revolt
was put down.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1956 Nov 22, Melbourne opened the
16th Olympiad. 65 countries and 4,276 athletes competed. Closing
ceremonies were held on Dec 8. The Netherlands and Spain withdrew from
the summer Olympics in support of Hungary following Russia’s invasion.
45 athletes from Hungary defected during the games. Egypt, Lebanon and
Iraq boycotted the games in protest over British and French actions
over the Suez Canal. China boycotted protesting the inclusion of
athletes from Taiwan.
(SFEC, 9/10/00, p.T8)(WSJ, 9/15/00, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/12/08, p.R2)
1956 Nov, Austria provided
humanitarian aid to nearly 200,000 Hungarians fleeing their homeland
after Soviet tanks crushed freedom fighters aiming to overthrow
repressive communist rule.
(AP, 10/20/06)
1957 Janos Kornai (b.1928),
Hungarian economist, authored “Overcentralization.” This was the 1st
book by an economist behind the Iron Curtain to examine the command of
“actual socialism” and to criticize central planning.
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.B15)
1958 Jun 16, Imre Nagy (b.1896),
former Hungarian premier (1956) and symbol of the 1956 uprising against
Soviet rule, was hanged by the Communist government of Janos Kadar.
(www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/nagy/)(Econ, 10/21/06,
p.95)
1960 Sep 13, Leo Weiner, Hungarian
composer (Toldi), died at 75.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1964 May 30, Leo Szilard (66),
Hungarian-US nuclear physicist, died.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1967 Mar 6, Zoltan Kodaly
(b.1882), Hungarian composer, died. His major works, notably the comic
opera Hary Janos, the Psalmus hungaricus, the Peacock Variations for
orchestra and the Dances of Marosszek and Galanta drew on Magyar folk
music.
(www.malaspina.org/kodalyz.htm)
1968 Aug 3, The Bratislava
statement conceded Czechoslovakia’s right to pursue its own path. The
conference was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, for representatives of the
communist and workers' parties of the People's Republic of Bulgaria,
the Hungarian People's Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the
Polish People's Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and
the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(http://library.thinkquest.org/C001155/documents/doc41.htm)
1969 Clifford Irving (b.1930),
American writer, published "Fake," the story of Hungarian art forger
Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976). The int'l. de Hory scam became public in
1967. Irving and De Hory were featured in the 1975 Orson Welles film
"F" for Fake.
(SFC, 7/29/99,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Irving)
1970 Jul 30, George Szell (73),
Hungarian-US conductor (Cleveland Orch), died.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1971 Sep 28, Cardinal Josef
Mindszenty (1892-1975) of Hungary, who had spent 15 years in refuge in
the US Embassy in Budapest, ended his exile and flew to Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty)
1973 Feb 20, Joseph Szigeti (80),
Hungarian-US violinist, died.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1973 Apr 16, Istvan Kertesz
(b.1929), Hungarian-born German conductor, drowned. Kertész was
the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to
1968,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Kert%C3%A9sz)
1973 Andras Hegedues, former
premier, was expelled from the Hungarian Communist Party for his
criticism of the government.
(SFC, 10/26/99, p.B4)
1974 Hungarian professor Erno
Rubik designed the Rubik's Cube. Sales peaked at 100 million in 1980.
Some 250 million units were sold worldwide.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(SFC, 8/8/03, p.D1)
1975 May 6, Jozsef Mindszenty
(83), [Joseph Prehm], Hungarian cardinal, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef_Mindszenty)
1976 Dec 11, Hungarian art forger
Elmyr de Hory (b.1906) died of a lethal overdose of barbiturates in
Ibiza, Spain. The 1969 book "Fake" by Clifford Irving was about De Hory
and both Irving and de Hory were featured in the 1975 Orson Welles film
"F" for Fake.
(SFC, 7/29/99,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory)
1982 Feb 26, Gabor Szabo (b.1936),
Hungarian jazz pianist (Perfect Circle), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1bor_Szab%C3%B3)
1983 Mar 1, Arthur Koestler
(b.1905), Hungary-born British writer (Dialogue With Death), died in a
double suicide with his wife in London. His novels included "Darkness
at Noon" (1940). In 1998 David Cesarani authored "Arthur Koestler: The
Homeless Mind." In 2009 Michael Scammell authored “Koestler: The
Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic.”
(SSFC, 1/3/10, Books
p.F3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler)
1984 Gyula Halasz, Hungarian born
photographer (aka Brassai), died. He was a friend of Picasso and Henry
Miller and was known as the "Eye of Paris" for his night time
photographs in the 1930s. His "Secret Paris of the 30s" was published
in 1976. He published 2 books on Henry Miller and "Conversations With
Picasso."
(WSJ, 1/15/98, p.W12)
1986 Oct 22, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
(b.1893), Hungarian-born bio-chemist, died. He received the Nobel Prize
in 1937 for discovering vitamin-C and the biochemical steps of
catalysis of the fumaric acid in the tricarboxylic acid cycle.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9070804/Albert-Szent-Gyorgyi)
1988 May 22, Janos Kadar,
installed by the Soviet Union as head of Hungary's Communist Party in
1956, was replaced by Prime Minister Karoly Grosz.
(AP, 5/22/98)
1988 Sep 26, A Trade and economic
cooperation agreement between the European Community and Hungary was
signed in Brussels.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1988/index_en.htm)
1988 Nov 13, Antal Dorati (82),
Hungarian-US conductor and composer, died.
(www.classical-composers.org/comp/dorati)
1989 Jan 28, In Hungary official
Imre Pozsgay described the 1956 Hungarian Revolution as a popular
uprising, a startling contradiction of the official Communist view that
the revolt was a counter-revolution.
(AP, 1/28/99)
1989 Jun 16, Hungarians paid
homage to former premier Imre Nagy and four associates executed for
leading the anti-Soviet revolt of 1956. At least 250,000 people
attended the ceremonial reburial of PM Imre Nagy and four others hanged
31 years earlier and buried face down in unmarked graves. The reburial,
broadcast live on TV from Budapest's Heroes' Square, came as Hungary's
communist leadership and the democratic opposition were beginning to
negotiate the country's transition to democracy. Sandor Racz, a 1956
veteran, called on the world to "help the Soviet Union" withdraw its
troops from Hungary. Viktor Orban, then 26 and later to become prime
minister, also urged the Russians to withdraw but blasted the country's
communist leadership for making the 1956 revolution a taboo subject.
(AP, 6/16/99)(AP, 6/16/09)
1989 Jul 6, Janos Kadar, who
helped restore Soviet domination and led Hungary for over 30 years
before being replaced in May 1988, died. This same day Hungary's
Supreme Court finally rehabilitated the 1956 revolutionaries.
(AP, 6/16/09)
1989 Jul 12, President Bush
continued his visit to Hungary, where he held talks with officials and
made a speech at Karl Marx University in Budapest.
(AP, 7/12/99)
1989 Aug 19, The "Pan-European
Picnic" helped precipitate the fall nearly three months later of the
Berlin Wall. Members of Hungary's budding opposition organized a picnic
at the border with Austria to press for greater political freedom and
promote friendship with their Western neighbors. Some 600 East Germans
got word of the event and turned up among the estimated 10,000
participants. They took advantage of the excursion to escape to Austria.
(AP, 8/19/09)
1989 Aug 23, Hungary removed its
physical border defenses with Austria, and in September more than
13,000 East German tourists in Hungary escaped to Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall)
1989 Sep 10, Hungary gave
permission for thousands of East German refugees and visitors to
emigrate to West Germany.
(AP, 9/10/99)
1989 Oct 7, Hungary's Communist
Party renounced Marxism in favor of democratic socialism during a party
congress in Budapest.
(AP, 10/7/99)
1989 Oct 23, Hungary proclaimed
itself a republic and declared an end to communist rule.
(http://tinyurl.com/qrnfm)
1989 Nov 26, In a national
referendum, voters decided that Hungary's next president would be
chosen by parliament, following free elections.
(AP,
11/26/99)(www.world66.com/europe/hungary/budapest/history)
1989 Nov 28, Romanian gymnast
Nadia Comaneci arrived in New York after escaping her homeland by way
of Hungary.
(AP, 11/28/99)
1989 Andras Torok (34) published
“Budapest: A Critical Guide.”
(Sm, 3/06, p.79)
1989 The end of Communism and the
economic cooperation pact of the former Eastern Bloc countries.
(WSJ, 12/4/95, p.B-8A)
1990 Mar, Several people were
killed and hundreds injured in clashes between Romanians and ethnic
Hungarians in the Transylvanian city of Targu Mures. The Szeklers make
up about a third of Romania's 1.4 million Hungarian minority.
(AP, 10/8/06)
1991 Aug 16, Pope John Paul the
Second began the first-ever papal visit to Hungary.
(AP, 8/16/01)
1991 Dec 16, "Europe Agreements"
are signed with Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1991/index_en.htm)
1991 Dec, Hungarian officials
discovered 11 tons of rocket launchers and automatic weapons being
loaded on trucks headed for Croatia in violation of a UN arms embargo.
They had been labeled as Chilean humanitarian aid for Sri Lanka. In
Chile Col. Gerardo Huber, who directed purchases at the army's weapons
manufacturer, turned up dead shortly after testifying in a military
investigation. His head had been blown apart by a blast from a machine
gun. In 2009 former Chilean Army Gen. Guillermo Letelier and Air Force
Gen. Vicente Rodriguez were sentenced to prison for shipping arms to
Croatia at the time of its battle for independence from Yugoslavia. 11
people were sentenced by a military court in June, 2009, for their
roles in the deal. In October, 2009, retired Gen. Victor Lizarraga and
retired Col. Manuel Provis got 10 and eight years, respectively, for
conspiracy and homicide. Gen. Carlos Krum and Col. Julio Munoz, also
both retired, got nearly 2 years for conspiracy and murder,
respectively. The identity of the gunman in Huber's murder remained
unknown.
(AP, 6/10/09)(AP, 10/5/09)
1991 In Visegrad, Hungary, a
declaration of co-operation was signed by Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic and Slovakia. The 4 became known as the Visegrad countries.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.10S)
1993 Jun 29, In Budapest, Hungary,
the Szobor Park Museum held its grand opening. It was a collection of
Communist era sculpture about 20 minutes from Budapest.
(WSJ, 12/27/96,
p.A5)(www.szoborpark.hu/en/en_museum_faq.php)
1993 Dec, Ameritech Corp. and
Deutsche Telekom AG teamed up to by a 30% stake in Matav Rt., the state
telephone system. By 1995 their stake was 67%. The government permitted
Matav to maintain a monopoly status for 8 years.
(WSJ, 6/25/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A8)
1993 Voluntary pension funds
operated by private financial institutions became available.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A18)
1993-1999 Attila Ambrus, Romanian-born hockey player,
robbed 29 banks in Hungary. In 2004 Julian Rubinstein authored “Ballad
of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey,
Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives and Broken
Hearts.”
(SSFC, 10/3/04, p.M6)
1994 Mar 18, Zsa Zsa Gabor,
Hungarian-born actress, filed for bankruptcy.
(www.nndb.com/people/530/000025455/)
1994 May 29, Hungary's Socialist
Party won parliamentary election. Socialist Prime Minister Gyula Horn
was elected to lead the Socialist-Free Democrat coalition. The
coalition slashed the communist welfare state and solidified
free-market democracy.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)(SC, 5/29/02)
1994 In Hungary paprika stocks
were adulterated with minium, a red oxide of lead, and many people were
stricken lead poisoning. Once lead enters the biosphere, it is retained
and recycled indefinitely. Lead atoms combine with cysteine’s sulfur
atoms and disrupt the disulfide bridges of proteins. Thus many enzymes
will malfunction.
(NH, 7/96, p.52,53)
1995 Jul 27, Miklos Rozsa (88),
Hungarian movie composer (Atomic Cafe, Fedora), died.
(www.sospeso.com/contents/composers_artists/rozsa.html)
1995 Budapest, the Independent
Smallholders is a right-wing opposition party led by Mr. Jozsef
Torgyan, and recent polls suggest that it is now Hungary's most popular
party.
(WSJ, 11/8/95, p.A-14)
1996 Apr, Sony Corp. plans to
build a plant to produce audiovisual products by early next year in the
town of Godollo about 19 miles northeast of Budapest. CD-players,
stereo systems, VCR players and color TVs are planned for production.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-3A)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a
Big Mac in Hungary was $1.43.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Sep 16, Romania and Hungary
signed a treaty over the status of 1.6 million Hungarians in Romania
and a guarantee of borders.
(SFE, 9/17/96, p.A12)
1997 May 15, In Hungary the
government approved the payment of $553.8 million to the Roman Catholic
Church for assets lost under Communist rule. Negotiations on a
concordat with the Vatican were in the final stages. Physical assets
would be gradually returned through 2011.
(WSJ, 5/16/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 8, NATO issued formal
invitations to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul, The parliament passed
legislation to privatize pensions starting Jan 1.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A18)
1997 Oct 22, In Chechnya relief
workers Istvan Olah and Gabor Dunajsky of Hungary were captured and
held as hostages. They were released in July, 1998.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A10)
1997 In Hungary a Y2000 report by
the Parliamentary Commission said Roma children in this year accounted
for 67.9% of the students in "special" schools. Roma children were
commonly channeled into schools for the mentally handicapped.
(SFC, 6/26/00, p.A10)
1998 May 10, Gyula Horn and the
ruling Socialists led in the first round of parliamentary elections.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A10)
1998 May 24, The Young
Democrats-Civic Party (Fidesz) led by Viktor Orban (34) won the
elections and opened the way for a center-right coalition to rule.
Fidesz won only 148 seats of the 386-member Parliament and planned to
form a coalition with The Hungarian Democratic Forum (17 seats) and the
Smallholders (48 seats). Orban was elected prime minister.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)(WSJ,
8/2100, p.B13F)
1998 Jun 24, The Young Democrats
Party and the Smallholders Party agreed to form the next government.
(SFC, 6/25/98, p.A12)
1998 Jul 2, A gangland car bomb
killed 4 and injured 25 people in Budapest. It was directed at Jozsef
Tamas Boros, a restaurateur who was cooperating with a police
investigation. A turf war between Russian, Ukrainian, Romania, Turkish
and Arab gangs had led to 140 bombings since 1991.
(SFC, 7/3/98, p.D2)
1998 The film "The Last Days" was
produced by Steven Spielberg. It was the stories of 5 Hungarian Jews
who survived the Holocaust.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)
1999 Feb 14, In Hungary the death
toll from the Feb 10 snow storm reached 19 and army helicopters were
used to drop food snow-bound villages.
(SFC, 2/15/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 12, Poland, Hungary and
the Czech Republic formally joined NATO in a ceremony at Independence,
Mo., where Pres. Truman announced in 1949 the formation of the Atlantic
alliance for defense against the Soviet bloc.
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.C14)
1999 Mar, Hungary approved
unlimited use of its airspace and airfields for NATO operations but
ruled out direct involvement of its own military.
(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A13)
1999 Apr 11, Hungary turned back a
Russian aid convoy headed for Belgrade.
(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A12)
1999 Apr 12, In Hungary a Russian
aid convoy bound for Serbia was allowed to proceed.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 23, In Hungary torrential
rains caused the evacuation of thousands and shut down roads and
railways across the country.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.T8)
2000 Jan 30, In Romania a dam at
the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed and caused cyanide to pout into the
Lapus River and then into the Somes River. It flowed into Hungary and
within weeks into the Tisa (Tisza) River in Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A9)(SFC, 2/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 21, It was reported that
the US FBI planned to open an office in Budapest in March at the
request of the Hungarian government in order to help break up Russian
gangs. The FBI would hire 10 Hungarian agents to work alongside 5 US
agents.
(SFC, 2/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 6, Ferenc Madl (69), law
professor, was elected president by the Parliament. He replaced Arpad
Goencz.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.B8)
2001 Mar 8, Flooding in the
Ukraine and northeastern Hungary left at least 5 people dead. Tens of
thousands were driven from their homes as the Tisza and other
Carpathian streams rose.
(WSJ, 3/9/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 15, The Hungarian Truth
and Life Party (MIEP) held a rally in Budapest that drew as many as
50,000. They included pensioners, urban students and professionals
mixed with dozens of skinheads.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 Jul 22, Miklos Meszoely,
author, died at age 80. His 1st book was published in 1948.
(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A20)
2001 The new Maria Valeria Bridge
over the Danube reunited Sturovo, Slovakia, with Esztergom, Hungary.
Germans blew up the old bridge in 1944.
(WSJ, 4/5/05, p.A15)
2002 Apr, PM Viktor Orban urged
Hungarians to look forward to EU membership in 2004, the introduction
of the euro in 2007 and the "Budapest Olympics" in 2012.
(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A18)
2002 Apr 21, In Hungary the
Socialists and allies won elections over the governing center-right
coalition, the Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Party (188 seats), with 198 of
386 seats in parliament. Peter Medgyessey became prime minister.
(SFC, 4/22/02, p.A5)
2002 Jun 18, PM Peter Medgyessey
was accused of having secretly served in Hungary’s Communist-era
counter-espionage service.
(SFC, 6/19/02, p.A8)
2002 Jul 1, In southwestern
Hungary a bus carrying Polish pilgrims to a shrine in Bosnia struck a
stone barrier and overturned in a ditch killing 19.
(AP, 7/1/02)
2002 Sep, Hungary’s governing
coalition swept elections, winning the mayoral races in 17 of 23 big
cities, including Budapest, and a majority in 15 of 19 county
assemblies.
(AP, 10/1/06)
2002 Oct 9, The European Union's
executive Commission declared Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia,
and Slovakia nearly ready for EU membership and recommended they be
invited to join in 2004. Romania and Bulgaria likely will be delayed
until 2007 because of weak economies, the Commission said, adding
Turkey was the weakest link among candidates.
(AP, 10/9/02)
2002 Oct 10, Imre Kertesz (72), a
Hungarian novelist and secular Jew, won the Nobel Prize for literature.
His books included "Fiasco" (1988) and "Kaddish for a Child Not Born"
(1990).
(SFC, 10/11/02, p.A2)(SFC, 12/5/02, p.E5)
2002 Nov 29, Romania urged
the EU on to reject a request by Hungarian producers for the exclusive
right to sell a regional brandy in EU countries under the generic name
"palinka." The Eastern European brandy, made from fermented fruit
pears, plums, apricots or grapes, has been produced in the region under
different names. In Hungary and in Romania's northwest region of
Transylvania, it is called "palinka," or "palinca," while in southern
Romania it is called "tuica," and in Moldova and Bulgaria "rakiya."
(AP, 11/30/02)
2002 Dec 13, The EU reached
agreement to accept 10 new countries in 2004. These included Czech
Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Slovakia, and Slovenia.
(SFC, 12/14/02, p.A3)
2003 Apr 12, Some 83.8% of voters
in Hungary agreed to be part of the historic eastward expansion of the
European Union.
(AP, 4/13/03)
2003 May 8, In Hungary a passenger
train collided with a double-decker bus, slicing the bus in two. At
least 30 people were killed, all German tourists on the bus.
(AP, 5/8/03)
2003 Sep, In Hungary Tibor Rejto,
CEO of K&H Bank, was arrested as part of an alleged $40-50 million
fraud scandal centered around stockbroker Attila Kulscar.
(Econ, 9/27/03, p.78)
2003 Nov, Hungary’s government
under PM Peter Medgyessy introduced a bonus monthly payment to all
retirees that became known as the “13th month.”
(WSJ, 3/25/09, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/c4dxl4)
2004 Feb, Tibor Draskovics was
appointed as Hungary‘s finance minister.
(WSJ, 8/24/04, p.A10)
2004 Apr 13, Hungarian authorities
said they arrested three Arabs who were plotting to assassinate
visiting Israeli President Moshe Katsav.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2004 Apr 15, In Hungary government
leaders and the Israeli president inaugurated this country's first
Holocaust museum in memory of Hungary's 600,000 Holocaust victims.
(AP, 4/15/04)
2004 Apr 27, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and EU officials signed an accord extending the
EU-Russia partnership accord to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta,
which join May 1.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 May 1, Revelers across
ex-communist eastern Europe celebrated their historic entry to the
European Union. 10 new members (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia)
joined. Malta joined with 70 exemptions to EU rules. Poland had 43
exemptions. Latvia had 32. The Turkish occupied area of Cyprus was
suspended from entry.
(AP, 5/1/04)(Econ, 2/28/04, p.50)(Econ, 4/16/05,
p.16)
2004 Aug 19, In Hungary the
Socialist Party effectively ousted Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy from
office and said it would nominate his replacement next week.
(AP, 8/19/04)
2004 Aug 25, Hungary chose Ferenc
Gyurcsany (43), one of the nation’s richest businessmen, as the new
premier. He made his fortune from privatization deals in the 1990s.
(WSJ, 8/26/04, p.A1)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.48)
2004 Aug 28, In Hungary hundreds
of thousands of young people thronged the streets of Budapest to the
sounds of techno music for the city's fifth annual electronic music
parade.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Aug, Sandor Demjan and Andrew
Vajna planned to construct the world’s largest movie studio in Etyek,
Hungary.
(WSJ, 8/26/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 3, Hungary said it will
withdraw its 300 non-combat troops from Iraq by March 31.
(AP, 11/3/04)
2004 Dec 5, Hungarians voted in a
referendum on extending citizenship to millions of ethnic Hungarians
living in the region.
(AP, 12/5/04)
2004 Hungary passed legislation to
fully open the state security archives. It allowed names to be kept
secret to protect modern day national security.
(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.13)
2005 Jan 1, Hungary was forecast
for 4% annual GDP growth with a population at 10 million and GDP per
head at $11,210.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.88)
2005 Feb 11, A political
consulting firm posted the names of 19 agents and informants of
Hungary's communist secret police on a Web site, and it threatened to
list more.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Apr 8, Kalman Ferenczfalvi
(84), credited with saving the lives of some 2,000 Jews during the
Holocaust, died in Hungary.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Jun 7, In Hungary legislators
narrowly elected Laszlo Solyom (63), a center-right opposition
candidate as the new president, in a setback for the governing
coalition.
(AP, 6/7/05)
2005 Oct 21, Hungary’s health
minister told a local news agency that the country has developed a
bird-flu vaccine from humans.
(WSJ, 10/22/05, p.A1)
2005 Hungary’s debt stood at
almost 60% of GDP.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.63)
2006 Jan 19, In northeastern
Hungary a Slovak military plane crashed as it ferried troops back from
Kosovo, killing at least 42 people. Only one person survived the crash
of the AN-24 aircraft.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Feb 21, Tests confirmed H5N1
in three birds found dead in Hungary, making the country the seventh EU
nation with an outbreak of the deadly strain of bird flu.
(AP, 2/21/06)
2006 Mar 14, Hungary’s PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany said Hungarian researchers have devised a vaccine for humans
against the current form of the H5N1 bird flu virus. “If the virus were
to mutate, we would not have to experiment with new technology but
would be able to manufacture a real vaccine within eight weeks.”
(AFP, 3/14/06)
2006 Apr 9, Hungary's ruling
Socialists appeared to hold a narrow lead in the first round of
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 23, In Hungary Socialist
PM Ferenc Gyurcsany's coalition won the runoff parliamentary ballots,
becoming Hungary's first administration to win re-election since
communism fell.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 May 13, PM Ferenc Gyurcsany
announced a plan to stabilize Hungary's economy involving massive
public sector layoffs, in an effort to get the country into the
eurozone by 2010.
(AFP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, In southern Hungary a
model airplane crashed into a crowd at an air show killing two
spectators.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 Jun 12, Hungary’s director of
national epidemic affairs some 1,200 people the northeast had fallen
ill from drinking contaminated water. Flooding caused by heavy spring
rainfall contaminated the spring water that flows into the city water
system.
(AP, 6/12/06)
2006 Jun 12, Gyorgy Ligeti
(b.1923), Hungarian composer, died in Vienna, Austria. Stanley Kubrick
used his scores in the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Ligeti’s
opera “Le Grand Macabre,” based on a play by Belgian surrealist Michel
Ghelderode, premiered in Stockholm in 1978.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.B7)
2006 Jun 22, Hungarian PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany said he and Pres. Bush had discussed calls to relax US rules
which exclude citizens of nine of the bloc's 10 new member states,
including Hungary, from visa waivers enjoyed by most of its other 15
member states. President Bush said war-weary Iraqis could learn from
the Hungarians' long and bloody struggle against tyranny.
(Reuters, 6/22/06)(AP, 6/22/07)
2006 Jul 8, In Hungary several
thousand labor union members demonstrated in Budapest against a
government austerity package they say requires a disproportionate
sacrifice from workers.
(AFP, 7/8/06)
2006 Jul 24, Hungary’s central
bank raised its core interest rate half a percentage point to 6.75% in
an aggressive move to stabilize its currency. This followed a quarter
point raise in June. Inflation stood at 2.8%.
(WSJ, 7/25/06, p.A8)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.64)
2006 Sep 1, Hungarian poet Gyorgy
Faludy (95), a legend of resistance to the rise of Nazism and
Communism, died at his home in Budapest. He spent 1950-1953 in the
Stalinist concentration camp at Recsk. Faludy won international fame
with his autobiographical novel "My Happy Days in Hell" in the 1960s,
which related his escape from fascist Hungary and his return, and
imprisonment, in a country under communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.96)
2006 Sep 19, Some 2,000-3,000
protesters stormed the headquarters of Hungarian state television and
forced it off the air briefly in an explosion of anger. The protests
began after a recording of PM Gyurcsany's comments made in May was
leaked to Hungarian media. In his speech to a meeting of Socialist
deputies, the prime minister admitted that the government had lied
about the state of the economy in order to ensure victory in the
elections.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 20, Hungarian PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany vowed to crack down on rioters. Police blaming the violence
on football hooligans and extreme right-wing groups. Thousands of
protesters demonstrated for a 4th day demanding that PM Gyurcsany
resign.
(AFP, 9/20/06)(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 23, A square in front of
Hungary's parliament overflowed with demonstrators demanding that PM
Gyurcsany quit in the largest protest yet since a recording was leaked
on which he admitted lying to the people about the economy. Hungary’s
current-account deficit reached 9% of GDP and the budget deficit hit
10%.
(AP, 9/24/06)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.64)
2006 Oct 6, Hungarian PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany convincingly won a confidence motion in parliament but a
crowd of over 50,000 opposition supporters gathered in front of the
building to demand he quit.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct 8, In Hungary tens of
thousands of anti-government protesters called for the ouster of the
Socialist PM Ferenc Gyurcsany because of his admission on a leaked tape
that he had lied to the country about the economy. A new leaked
recording of a Socialist minister was broadcast, raising more questions
about the government's integrity.
(AP, 10/8/06)
2006 Oct 23, In Hungary riots left
167 injured, including 17 police officers, while 131 were detained. The
anti-government demonstrations coincided with Hungary's commemoration
of the 50th anniversary of its uprising against Soviet rule. The next
day Viktor Orban, Hungarian conservative opposition leader, came under
withering attack for his role in fueling the far-right protests in
Budapest.
(AFP, 10/24/06)(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Mar 15, In Hungary thousands
of people protested against Socialist PM Ferenc Gyurcsany at ceremonies
to mark the country's national holiday, demanding his resignation and
shouting "traitor."
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 May 2, The grave of Hungary's
last communist ruler, Janos Kadar (1956-1988), was pried open and his
remains and his wife's urn were thought to have been stolen.
(Reuters, 5/2/07)
2007 May 20, Hungary’s PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany said that the justice minister resigned and the national and
Budapest police chiefs were dismissed in an effort to restore public
confidence in the force after cases accusing officers of rape,
corruption and theft.
(AP, 5/21/07)(Econ, 6/2/07, p.51)
2007 Jul 19, In southern Hungary a
tourist bus collided with a truck. The truck driver and six bus
passengers were killed, and 16 others were injured.
(AP, 7/19/07)
2007 Sep 24, Hungarian officials
said that in an effort to bring prostitutes into the legal economy,
they will allow sex workers to apply for an entrepreneur's permit, a
move that could generate government revenues from an industry worth an
estimated $1 billion annually.
(AP, 9/24/07)
2007 Oct 5, Nearly 300
participants started twisting and turning a small multicolored cube on
the first day of the Rubik's Cube World Championships in Budapest, the
birthplace of the cult puzzle.
(AFP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 7, In Budapest, Hungary,
Yu Nakajima of Japan (16) took the top prize at the Rubik's Cube World
Championships, solving the cube 5 times in an average of 12.46 seconds.
(AP, 10/8/07)
2007 Nov 21, In Hungary several
trade unions and civic groups held a series of strikes and protests
against the Socialist-led government's plans to privatize health
insurance and close some railway lines.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 28, Two Hungarians and a
Ukrainian were arrested in eastern Slovakia and Hungary in an attempted
sale of a kilo (2.2 lbs) of uranium, material believed to be from
the former Soviet Union. Police said it was enriched enough to be used
in a radiological "dirty bomb."
(AP, 11/29/07)
2007 Dec 20, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech
Republic halted land and sea border controls at midnight in a wave of
new members of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone. They all joined
the EU on May 1, 2004.
(AFP, 12/20/07)(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Janos Kornai (b.1928),
Hungarian economist, authored “By Force of Thought: Irregular Memoirs
of an Intellectual Journey.”
(WSJ, 1/30/07, p.B15)
2008 Feb 26, Hungary’s central
bank adopted a new currency regime allowing its currency to float
rather than trade in a band against the euro, which began in 2001.
Adoption of the euro was predicted to take place in 2014 at the
earliest.
(WSJ, 2/26/08, p.A5)
2008 Mar 17, The US administration
signed deals with Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia paving the way for
visa-free travel for their citizens despite concerns in Brussels over
the bilateral agreements.
(AFP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 9, In Hungary 80% of
voters in a referendum rejected small charges for doctor visits, and
hospital stays as well as tuition fees for higher education.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.67)
2008 Apr 1, Hungary’s coalition
partner pulled out of the government leaving the Socialists without a
parliamentary majority.
(WSJ, 4/2/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr, Exxon Mobil bought into
a venture seeking to extract natural gas from a huge reservoir in the
Mako Trough of Hungary.
(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 9, Trading in Hungary’s
bond market broke down as buyers practically disappeared for a 10-year
auction. The government raised less than planned. A day earlier it left
its key lending rate at 8.5%.
(WSJ, 10/10/08, p.A4)
2008 Oct 16, The European Central
Bank extended emergency loans to Hungary’s central bank. The ECB said
it will lend up to $6.75 billion.
(SFC, 10/17/08, p.A5)
2008 Oct 22, The DJIA tumbled
514.45 to close at 8519.21, its 7th biggest point drop in history, as
investors believed that the global economy is heading into a deep
recession. Hungary’s central bank raised interest rates by 3 points,
from 8.5% to 11.5%, to prevent a run on its currency. Argentine and
Brazilian stock markets each fell about 10%. Former Fed Chief Alan
Greenspan said he was wrong to think that financial markets could
police themselves.
(WSJ, 10/22/08, p.A1)(SFC, 10/24/08, p.C1)(Econ,
10/25/08, p.33)
2008 Oct 26, Hungary reached
agreement with the IMF and the EU on a broad economic rescue package,
including substantial financing, steadying its battered currency. The
deal was expected to be finalized over the next few days.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Oct 29, Officials said that
EU governments promised to lend Hungary 6.5 billion euros ($8.1
billion) as part of a 20 billion euro ($25 billion) international
rescue package to help it weather a financial crisis that has sharply
devalued its currency.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Nov 6, Authorities said
Hungary is preparing a financial aid package worth up to 600 billion
forints ($3 billion, 2.3 billion euros) to boost domestic banks'
capital and help them refinance debts.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Nov 24, The National Bank of
Hungary cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to an
annual rate of 11% to support the economy amid the global financial
crisis.
(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Dec 8, The National Bank of
Hungary cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to an
annual rate of 10.5% due to the deteriorating economy outlook.
(WSJ, 12/9/08, p.C2)
2008 Dec 15, Hungary's
Constitutional Court annulled a law giving rights to domestic partners
because it would diminish the importance of marriage.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2009 Jan 3, Russian gas flows to
four European Union countries fell normal levels after Moscow cut off
supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row with no talks in sight to resolve
the dispute. Bulgaria's Bulgargaz joined energy firms in Poland,
Romania and Hungary in saying they had noted falls in supply.
(Reuters, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 7, In Hungary a masked
gunman shot to death Jozsef Takacs (62), a school principal, and Laszlo
Papp (32), a teacher, at a school in the Budapest neighborhood of
Csepel. 2 suspects were arrested the next day. Police said a security
guard shot the two men, hours after he and an accomplice, a 36-year-old
former administrator at the school, were fired by the principal on
suspicion of embezzling up to 4 million forints ($20,000, euro14,600).
(AP, 1/7/09)(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Feb 27, Leading international
financial institutions said Eastern Europe's struggling banks will
receive euro24.5 billion ($31.1 billion) worth of emergency help to
shore up their battered finances. Regional leaders were scheduled to
meet this weekend. The Hungarian, Polish and Czech currencies
strengthened on the news of the aid package.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2009 Mar 1, Germany rejected
appeals for a single multibillion euro (dollar) bailout of eastern
Europe, even after Hungry begged EU leaders not to let a new "Iron
Curtain" divide the continent into rich and poor.
(AP, 3/1/09)
2009 Mar 15, In Hungary several
thousand people held right wing, anti-government protests in Budapest
during a national holiday. Police detained 35 people. The holiday
commemorated the unsuccessful 1848 revolution against the Habsburgs.
(AP, 3/15/09)
2009 Mar 21, Hungary’s PM Ferenc
Gyurcsany offered his resignation to allow the formation of a new
government, citing a loss of popularity and worsening economic crisis.
The former communist youth leader was quickly re-elected as party
chairman.
(AFP, 3/21/09)(Econ, 3/28/09, p.63)
2009 Mar 24, In Hungary former
bank governor Gyorgy Suranyi emerged as the preferred candidate to
replace PM Gyurcsany.
(WSJ, 3/25/09, p.A1)
2009 Mar 30, Hungary’s ruling
Socialist Party nominated economy minister Gordon Bajnai to become the
country’s next prime minister.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A14)
2009 Jun 8, Final election results
showed a British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary seats
in EU elections. The British National Party, which does not accept
nonwhite members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of
immigrants, won two of Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament.
Austria's Freedom Party, which also campaigned on an anti-Islam
platform, more than doubled its share of the vote to 13.1%. Hungary's
Jobbik party, which describes itself as Euro-skeptic and
anti-immigration and wants police to crack down on what it calls "Gypsy
crime," won three of the country's 22 seats and almost 15% of the vote.
The Greater Romania Party, which is, among other things, pro-religion,
anti-gay and anti-Hungarian, made surprise gains, winning almost 9% of
the vote and taking two of Romania's 33 seats. A bloc of center-right
parties remained the largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.63)
2009 Jul 13, Turkey and four EU
countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary) formally agreed to
route the Nabucco natural gas pipeline across their territories,
pushing ahead with a US- and EU-backed attempt to make Europe less
dependent on Russian gas.
(AP, 7/13/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.47)
2009 Aug 21, Slovakia stopped
Hungary’s Pres. Laszlo Solyom from crossing its border. This was a
breach of EU rules on freedom of movement. Solyom had planned to
unveil a statue of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, in the
predominantly Hungarian city of Komarno. Slovakia’s government had
objected to the visit as the date coincided with the “Prague Spring” of
1968, when Hungary, as part of the Warsaw pact, took part in the Soviet
crush of Czechoslovakia’s independence movement.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.46)
2009 Sep 1, In Slovakia a new
language law was scheduled to come into force to promote the use of
Slovak in public. Hungarian speakers, who numbered about a fifth of the
population, viewed this as a direct attack on their right to speak
their mother-tongue.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.47)
2009 Sep 16, Hungary said it will
accept a detainee from Guantanamo Bay, inching President Barack Obama
closer to his pledge to close the U.S. military detention center.
(AP, 9/16/09)
2009 Oct 9, In Hungary contestants
showed off breast implants, nose jobs and face lifts as Miss Plastic
Hungary 2009 strove to promote the benefits of plastic surgery.
(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 29, In Hungary Laszlo
Majtenyi, the chairman of Hungary's national body in charge of awarding
frequencies (ORTT), announced his resignation after ORTT took away 2
nationwide licenses from foreign-owned stations and gave them to 2
local firms, one with links to Fidesz, the right-wing opposition party.
(www.bbj.hu/?col=1002&id=50638)(Econ, 11/7/09,
p.60)
2009 Nov 14, In Moscow Magnus
Carlsen (18) of Norway became the new No. 1 chess player in the world
with a tournament victory over Peter Leko of Hungary.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A6)
2009 Nov 26, In southern Hungary a
student (23) opened fire at a university in the city of Pecs, killing
one student and wounding three other people.
(Reuters, 11/26/09)
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