Timeline Romania
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Dacia
was
an ancient kingdom and later a Roman
province
in southern Europe between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube
corresponding
generally to modern Rumania and adjacent regions.
(WUD, 1994, p.363)
104Mil BC In
1914 Romanian Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933) found fossils of small
dinosaurs in Romania that dated to about this time in the Cretaceous
period.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A7)
36-34k BCE In 2002 the jawbone of a cave-man living
in what is now Romania was found in Pestera cu Oase. It was reported as
the oldest fossil from an early modern human to be found in Europe and
was carbon-dated to this time.
(AP, 9/22/03)
650 BC The Transylvanian Dacians are first known from
their contacts with the Greeks about this time.
(WSJ, 6/18/97, p.A20)
103-105AD Apolodorus of Damascus built a bridge over
the Danube for Emperor Trajan. It con-nected the Roman provinces of
Moesia Superior and Dacia (the Yugoslavian and Romanian banks
respectively).
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.26)
105AD Flavius Cerialis, prefect of
Cohort IX of Batavians at Vindolanda in northern England, was
transferred to the Danube to join Trajan’s forces gathering for the
Second Dacian War.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.17)
700-800 Invading Slavs assimilated the Thracians in
the area of modern Bulgaria and parts of Greece, Romania, Macedonia and
Turkey.
(SFC, 8/17/05, p.A2)
1300-1400 The Sihastra Monastery was founded in the
14th century.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)
1400-1500 In Romania Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the
Impaler, the son of Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon), was a 15th century
gruesome Wallachian nobleman. Dracula means son of the dragon. He
punished disobedient subjects and “unchaste” women by impaling them on
sharpened logs, of-ten dining amid the victims as they died. The family
name changed to Kretzulesco and grew in stature with members upgraded
to princes and princesses.
(WSJ, 10/30/97, p.A20)
1437 Sep 18, Farmers revolted in
Transylvania.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1660 May 29, Gyorgy Rakosi II
prince of Transylvania, died in battle.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1691 In northwest Romania an icon
was painted at a monastery in Nicula. According to leg-end, the icon of
the Weeping Virgin, wept for 26 days in 1699. The first recorded
miracle oc-curred in 1701 when it is said to have cured an army
officer's wife who was going blind. The church attached to the
monastery is named after St. Mary and pilgrimages there are made every
year on Aug. 15, Mary's name day. In 1977, the church burned down, but
the icon was unharmed. In 2005 low water level revealed its skeleton.
(AP, 8/15/05)
1723 Dimitrie Cantemir (b.1673),
2-time Prince of Moldavia (1693 & 1710-1711), died near Kharkov,
Ukraine. He was born in what is now Romania and became a prolific man
of letters with talents as a philosopher, historian, composer,
musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and ge-ographer. Between 1687 and
1710 he lived in forced exile in Istanbul, where he learned Turkish and
studied the history of the Ottoman Empire at the Patriarchate's Greek
Academy, where he also composed music.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitrie_Cantemir)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.104)
1801 Apr 8, Soldiers rioted in
Bucharest and killed 128 Jews.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1812 Russia acquired Bessarabia,
the north eastern part of the original principality of Molda-via, in
the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812).
(Econ, 1/6/07,
p.43)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessarabia)
1821 Jun 2, Ion Bratianu (Lib),
premier of Romania (1876-88), was born.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1864 Dec 4, Romanian Jews were
forbidden to practice law.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1876 Feb 21, Constantin Brancusi
(d.1957), Romanian-French sculptor (Princesse X), was born in Hobitza,
Romania. he made it to Paris in 1902. His works include “The Kiss”
(1908) and the “Sleeping Muse” (1910).
(WSJ, 10/19/95, A-18)(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.W12)(MC,
2/21/02)
1881 Aug 19, Georges Enescu,
composer (Romanian Dances), was born in Romania.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1882 May 15, May Laws: Czar
Alexander III banned Jews from living in rural Romania.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1887 Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum
(1887-1979) founder of the Satmar Hassids in Satu Mare, Ro-mania, was
born. The ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism later established itself in
NYC.
(Econ, 4/29/06,
p.37)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Teitelbaum)
1895 Oct 1, Romanians in
Constantinople were massacred.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1902 Sep 17, The US protested
anti-Semitism in Romania.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1902 Sep 22, John Houseman,
director, producer and actor, was born in Bucharest, Roma-nia.
(HN, 9/22/00)(MC, 9/22/01)
1906 Mar 3, Vuia I aircraft, built
by Romanian Traja Vuia, was tested in France.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1907 Mar 31, Romanian Army put
down a Moldavian farmers' revolt.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1909 Nov 13, Eugene Ionesco,
Romanian-born dramatist, was born. His work included “The Bald Soprano”
and “Rhinoceros.” [see Nov 26, 1909 and Nov 26, 1912]
(HN, 11/13/00)
1909 Nov 26, Eugene Ionesco
(d.1994), Romanian-born French dramatist, was born. [see Nov 13, 1909
and Nov 26, 1912]
(AP, 11/26/02)
1912 Jun 28, Sergiu Celibidache,
Romanian conductor, was born.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1912 Nov 26, Eugene Ionesco,
dramatist (Rhinoceros), was born in Slatina, Romania. [see Nov 13 and
Nov 26, 1909]
(WUD, 1994 p.750)(MC, 11/26/01)
1913 Jun 1, Serbia and Greece
concluded a secret treaty for joint action against Bulgaria; joined by
Romania. Dissatisfied with their share of the spoils, Serbia, denied
its proposed outlet to the Adriatic Sea, sought compensation in
Macedonia along the Vardar River which the Bul-garians rejected while
Greece asked for control of Thessaloniki and "a certain part" of the
east-ern Macedonian territories, which Bulgaria rejected as well.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)
1913 Jul 10, Rumania entered the
Second Balkan War and four days later the Ottoman Em-pire joined the
general assault on Bulgaria. Faced with four fronts, Bulgarian armies
were de-feated piecemeal and the government at Sofia was forced to seek
peace. Atrocities were wide-spread. For example, in pursuing the
Bulgarian army Greek forces systematically burnt to the ground all
Macedonian villages they encountered, mass-murdering their entire
populations. Likewise, when the Greek army entered Kukush (Kilkis) and
occupied surrounding villages, about 400 old people and children were
imprisoned and killed. Nor did the Serbian "liberators" lag behind in
destruction and wanton slaughter throughout Macedonia. In Bitola,
Skopje, Shtip and Gevgelija, the Serbian army, police and chetniks
(guerrillas) committed their own atrocities.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)
1913 Aug 10, The Treaty of
Bucharest ended the Second Balkan War. It was concluded by the
delegates of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. The
entire "disputed zone" was taken by Serbia, Greece secured its position
in Thessaloniki and southeastern Ma-cedonia, the Ottomans regained all
the territories lost in the First Balkan War to Bulgaria with the
exception of eastern (Pirin) Macedonia, and the Romanians seized
Southern Dobruja.
(www.maknews.com/html/articles/stefov/stefov61.html)
1914 Jun 15, Saul Steinberg,
American cartoonist (New Yorker), was born in Romania.
(HN, 6/15/01)
1914 Baron Franz Nopcsa
(1877-1933) found fossils of small dinosaurs in Romania that dated to
the Cretaceous period.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A7)
1915 Marie, the queen of Romania,
visited San Francisco.
(SFC, 3/8/08, p.F2)
1916 Aug 28, Germany declared war
on Romania.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1916 Sep 1, Bulgaria declared war
on Romania as the First World War expanded.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1917 Jan 5, Bulgarian and German
troops occupied the Port of Braila in East Romania.
(HN, 1/5/99)(WUD, 1994, p.178)
1918 Jan 26, Nicolae Ceausescu,
Romanian president (1967-90), was born.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1918 An attempt to establish a
Moldovan Soviet failed and Romanian troops occupied the province.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)
1920 Jun 4, The Treaty of
Trianon, signed at Versailles, was forced upon Hungary by the
vic-torious 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 Tran-sylvania to Romania.
(HNQ, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 1/2/97,
p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)
1920 Aug 10, Allies recognized
Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1920 Paul Celan, Romanian poet
(d.1970), was born.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1922 May 29, Iannis Xenakis, Greek
mathematician, architect and composer, was born in Romania. In 2004
James Harley authored “Xenakis: His Life in Music.”
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.M4)
1924 The Bolsheviks formed the
Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), aka
Transdniestria, as a basis for later taking over a chunk of Romania.
(WSJ, 7/8/97, p.A1,8)(http://tinyurl.com/b7m4b)
1925 Brother Cleopa entered the
Sihastra Monastery at age 25.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)
1926 Queen Marie of Romania spoke
at the dedication ceremony of the unfinished Maryhill Museum in
Washington state. Sam Hill, railroad magnate, built a replica of
Stonehenge as a monument to Klickitat County soldiers who lost their
lives in the World War on the premises. His nearby mansion later became
the Maryhill Museum of Art.
(AM, 9/01, p.10)
1927 The Legion of the Archangel
Michael was formed and later became the Iron Guard. It was committed to
the “Christian and racial” renovation. The Fascist organization fed on
anti-Semitism and mystical nationalism and was a major social and
political force in Romania be-tween 1930 and 1941. It was finally
destroyed when in 1941 when it staged a revolt against the government
of General Ion Antonescu.
(HNQ, 11/27/01)
1928 Sep 30, Elie Wiesel,
Holocaust survivor, writer (Souls on Fire), best known for his first
book “Night” about his own experiences in concentration camps, was born
in Romania. He won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
(HN, 9/30/98)(MC, 9/30/01)
1933 Apr 25, Romanian Baron Franz
Nopcsa von Felso-Szilvas (b.1877) killed his long time companion and
secretary, an Albanian named Bajazid Elmas Doda, and committed suicide.
(SFC, 6/8/06, p.A7)(http://tinyurl.com/jffdw)
1934 The wife of PM Gheorghe
Tatarascu asked Constantin Brancusi to commemorate the citizens of
Targu Jiu, who died trying to hold back the WW I Austro-German
invasion. Brancusi agreed and created sculptures titled: “Endless
Column,” “Gate of the Kiss” and “Table of Si-lence.” The 97-foot
Endless Column was taken down for restoration in 1996. A 2nd
restoration was completed in 2001.
(WSJ, 11/30/01, p.W12)
1935-1944 In 2000 the memoir of Mihail Sebastian, a
Jewish Romanian playwright, was published: “Journal, 1935-1944: The
Fascist Years.” Sebastian died soon after the war in a traffic accident.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, Par p.19)
1938 The documentary film “Tara
Motilor” by Paul Calinescu won the documentary section at the Venice
Film Festival.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E2)
1938 In Romania Bran Castle, owned
by Queen Marie, was bequeathed to her daughter Prin-cess Ileana. In
1948 it was confiscated by the Communists. In 2006 the fabled
“Dracula’s Cas-tle” was transferred to Dominic van Hapsburg, a New York
architect who inherited it from Prin-cess Ileana.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)
1939 Aug 13, Saul Steinberg,
American artist (The Art of Living, New Yorker Magazine), was born in
Romania.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1940 Jun 26, The Soviet Union
delivered an ultimatum to Romania and 2 days later occupied Bessarabia
and North Bukovina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Bessarabia_by_the_Soviet_Union)
1940 Oct 8, German troops occupied
Romania.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1940 Nov 27, Astonescu's Iron
Guard massacred over sixty aides of the exiled king, including Nicolae
Iorga, a former minister and acclaimed historian. Two months prior
General Ion An-tonescu seized power in Romania and forced King Carol II
to abdicate.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1940 King Carol II abdicated for
the 2nd time and Michael became king for a 2nd time.
(SFC, 10/20/00, p.A16)
1941 Jan 9, Some 6,000 Jews were
exterminated in a pogrom in Bucharest, Romania. [see Jan 22]
(MC, 1/9/02)
1941 Jan 22, The 1st mass killing
of Jews took place in Romania. [see Jan 9]
(MC, 1/22/02)
1941 Feb 10, London severed
diplomatic relations with Romania. Romania's indigenous fighter, the
IAR 80, saw service in defense of its homeland and against the Soviets.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1941 Jun 19, Romania ordered Jews
to evacuate Darabani.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1941 Jun 28, German and Romanian
soldiers killed 11,000 Jews in Kishinev.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1941 Jun, In the northeastern city
of Iasi, Romania, up to 12,000 people are believed to have died as
Romanian and German soldiers swept from house to house to killing Jews.
(AP, 6/14/03)
1941 Jul 23, German and Romanian
troops reoccupied Moldova as part of Operation Bar-barossa.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)
1941 Jul, The 16,000 sq. mile area
of the Ukraine named Transnistria was granted by Hitler to the Romanian
dictator Ion Antonescu for Romania’s participation in the war against
the soviet Union. Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Moldova were
transferred here and many thou-sands were murdered from 1941-1944 by
the Romanian Gendarmeric, the Einsatrzgruppe D, Ukrainian police and
Sonderkommando R.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A15)
1941 Aug 7, In Romania 551 Jews
were shot in the Kishinev ghetto.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1941 Oct 8, The Romanian
government gave the order to deport 11,000 Jews remaining in Kishinev
across the Dniester to Rybnitsa and into Nazi hands.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)
1941 Oct 22-23, Some 39,000 Jews
were killed by Romanian troops over 2 days in Odessa. Many of them were
burned to death in a public square or in warehouses that were locked
shut. Some 90,000 Jews were killed in Odessa altogether.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)
1941 Dec, In Romania authorities
ordered the dissolution of all Jewish organizations. Chief Rabbi
Alexander Safran (1910-2006) helped set up the Jewish Council, an
underground organi-zation comprising all sectors of the Jewish
population. The council used its links with Romanian church officials,
the Vatican and the royal family in a bid to prevent the mass
deportation of Romania's Jews to the Nazi extermination camps.
(AP, 7/28/06)
1941-1945 Some 148,000 Bessarabian Jews were killed
in Rybnitsa and other ghettos and concen-tration camps on the East bank
of the Dniester during the Nazi occupation.
(WSJ, 1/2/02, p.A18)
1941-1945 In 2000 Radu Ioanid authored "The Holocaust
In Romania," which described how 250,000 people died under Ion
Antonescu. 25,000 Gypsies were deported to Transnistria (later in the
Ukraine), of whom 1,500 died.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)
1942 Jun 12, American bombers
struck the oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania for the first time.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1943 Aug 1, Over 177 B-24
Liberator bombers attacked the German oil fields in Ploesti, Ro-mania,
for a second time. Of 1,762 airmen on the mission, 532 were killed,
captured, interned or listed as missing in action. In 2007 Duane
Schultz authored “Into the Fire: Ploesti” The Most Fateful Mission of
World War II.
(HN, 8/1/98)(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.D5)
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 Former King Michael I
purchased the Savarsin castle. It was later used as a hospital and then
a private residence for Ceausescu. A local court in 2000 awarded the
castle back to Mi-chael.
(SFC, 4/6/00, p.C16)
1944 Mar 18, The Russians reached
the Rumanian border in the Balkans.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1944 Apr 2, Soviet forces entered
Romania, one of Germany's allied countries.
(HN, 4/2/01)
1944 Jun 23, In one of the largest
air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sent 761 bombers
against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1944 Aug 23, Romanian PM Ion
Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to
abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. King Michael organized a coup
against the pro-Nazi dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, but was
double-crossed by Joseph Stalin and be-trayed by the Allies who ceded
the country to the Russians at the Yalta summit in 1945.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 8/23/97)
1944 Aug 25, Romania declared war
on Germany.
(AP, 8/25/99)
1944 Aug 30, Ploesti, the center
of the Rumanian oil industry, fell to Soviet troops.
(HN, 8/30/00)
1944 The Soviet army re-conquered
Bessarabia. Only then were the two parts of present-day Moldova joined
together to form the Moldavian SSR. At the same time, about one-third
of Bes-sarabia, including its entire Black Sea coastline, was
incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. The Transdniester region, having
long been part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union,
remained more Russified and Sovietized than Right-Bank Moldavia.
(http://tinyurl.com/b7m4b)
1944 Some 350,000 Romanian Jews
survived WWII and many soon migrated to Israel.
(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.A11)
1945 Mar 2, King Michael of
Romania gave in to Communist government.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1945 Mar 12, USSR returned
Transylvania to Romania.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Nov 30, Radu Lupu, pianist
(Enesco 1st prize-1967), was born in Galati, Romania.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1946 The communist regime
imprisoned hundreds of thousands of priests, intellectuals, peasants
and politicians deemed dangerous and impossible to convert to communist
ideals.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1947 Dec 30, Rumania's King
Michael was exiled when the Soviet backed Communists took over. King
Michael of Romania agreed to abdicate, but charged he was being forced
off the throne by Communists.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 12/30/97)(HN, 12/30/98)
1947 Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran
was dismissed from his post and forced to leave Roma-nia, making his
home in Geneva. He had refused to cooperate with the new Jewish
Democratic Committee, saying it was a Communist body intent on breaking
up traditional Jewish organiza-tions and bringing Jewish life in
Romania to a standstill.
(AP, 7/28/06)
1948 Jan 3, King Michael left
Romania. His Peles Castle in Sinaia was confiscated by the Communists.
In 2006 it was returned to the former king.
(SFC, 10/20/00, p.A16)(SFC, 5/24/06, p.A2)
1948 The communist state banned
the Eastern Rite Catholic Church.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1948-1951 Father Alexandru Todea escaped from prison
and went into hiding. During this time he was secretly made a bishop.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1949 In Romania Ticu Dumitrescu
(1928-2000) was sentenced to 27 years prison for being an enemy of the
state. From 1949 to 1964, he was incarcerated in communist jails or
kept under house arrest.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1950 Dec
2, Dinu Lipatti (b.1917), Romania-born pianist, died of leukemia in
Geneva, Switz.
(www.inkpot.com/classical/lipatti.html)
c1950 Brother Cleopa under
pressure from the Communist party to stop receiving visitors, who
sought his guidance, left the Sihastra Monastery and became a hermit in
the mountain forests for 3 years. He ate 1 potato a day.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)
1951 Sep 17, Romanian bishop A.
Pacha of Timisoara was sentenced to 18 years.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1951 Bishop Alexandru Todea was
caught and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1954 Marin Sorescu published his
poetry “Alone Among Poets.”
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.A24)
1955 May 4, Georges Enescu (73),
Romanian-French violist, composer (Oedipe), died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
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)
1957 Mar 16, Constantin Brancusi
(b.1876), Romanian-born French sculptor, died. He willed his studio and
work to France.
(WSJ, 3/30/00,
p.A28)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Br%C3%A2ncu%C5%9Fi)
1957 May 29, George Bacovia
[Vasiliu] Romanian poet, composer (Plumb), died at 75.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1958 Jan 7, Petru Groza (74),
premier and president (Romania, 1945-58), died.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1958-1964 Col. Gheorghe Craciun (d.2001) commanded
the Aiud Prison. He was later charged with the deaths of 216 prisoners
but died before the trial was completed.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A17)
1959 The first International
Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), a World Championship Mathemat-ics
Competition for High School students, was held in Romania, with 7
countries participating. In 1978 Dr. George Lenchner (1917-2006 created
the Mathematical Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS,
originally LIMOES).
(http://imo.math.ca/)(www.moems.org/memoriam.htm)
1961 Nov 12, Nadia Comaneci,
[Gheorghe], Romanian gymnast (1st 10/Olympic-gold-1976), was born.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1963 Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej gave
amnesties to political prisoners and Bishop Alexandru Todea was
released from prison.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1964 A number of political
prisoners, including Alexandru Salca (d.2001 at 78), were released in a
general amnesty. Salca served 7 years for opposing the pro-Moscow
government and an-other 8 for opposing the 1956 Soviet invasion of
Hungary. He later authored 4 books on the horrors of Communist prisons
and the Black Sea Canal forced labor camps where tens of thou-sands
perished.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A17)
1965 Mar 19, Stoica became
president and Ceausescu party leader of Romania.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1966-1974 Ilie Verdet served as deputy prime
minister.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A20)
1967 Dec 9, Nicolae Ceausescu
became president (dictator) of Romania.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1967 Soviet Gen. Sakharovsky
became chief intelligence adviser in Romania. He helped bring Yasser
Arafat to the Soviet Union via Romania for training and indoctrination.
The soviets maneuvered to have Arafat named chairman of the PLO with
help from Egypt’s ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sakharovsky was later
reported to be responsible for killing 50,000 Romanians.
(WSJ, 1/10/02, p.A12)
1969 Aug 2, Richard Nixon
visited Romania becoming the first president to visit a communist
nation since the start of the Cold War.
(HNQ, 11/20/01)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1464.html)
c1970s Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was
the Stalinist predecessor of Ceausescu.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A10)
1972 The jellyfish population in
the Black Sea exploded following the completion of a dam in a section
of the Danube that runs between Serbia and Romania.
(WSJ, 11/27/07, p.A14)
1974 Mar 28, In Romania the
position of President of the Republic was created especially for
Nicolae Ceausescu, who is then named President for life by Grand
National Assembly.
(www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/ceausescu_chronology.htm)
1976 Nadia Comaneci of Romania
scored 7 perfect 10s in gymnastics during the Olympic games in Montreal.
(NG, 8/04, Geographica)
1977 Mar 4, A 7.4 earthquake in
Romania killed about 1,570 people and was felt across southern and
eastern Europe.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Bucharest_Earthquake)(AP,
3/4/98)(SFC, 4/28/99, p.A15)
1977 In Romania Gen. Nicolae
Plesita helped stifle striking coal miners in the Jiu Valley whose
unrest posed a threat to Pres. Ceausescu.
(AP, 9/30/09)
1978 Romania’s Gen. Ion Pacepa, a
top ranking Securitate officer, defected to the United States. Pres.
Ceausescu hired Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, to
assassinate Pacepa but he failed.
(AP, 9/30/09)
1980 Ilie Verdet (d.2001 at 75)
was appointed prime minister and served for 2 years.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A20)
1980-1989 In Romania a huge building spree by Nicolae
Ceausescu leveled entire neighborhoods in Bucharest and left a large
number of stray dogs roaming the streets. Their number reached
100-200,000 in 1997.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A20)
1981 Feb 21, A bombing in Munich
of Radio Free Europe injured 9 people. Romania’s Pres. Ceausescu
ordered Gen. Ion Pacepa to find temporary shelter for Ilich Ramirez
Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, in Romania after the bombing. Ceausescu
sold arms and explosives to Ra-mirez and enabled him to produce
counterfeit passports and driver's licenses.
(AP,
9/30/09)(www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3475896.html)
1982 Feb 9, Mihai Anton Prodea,
artist, was born in Sibiu, Romania.
(KMB, 2003)
1986 The church bishops secretly
elected Bishop Alexandru Todea leader of the church with the rank of
Metropolitan.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1986 Ion Cioaba, Gypsy leader, was
jailed and tortured on alleged charges of cheating the government on a
copper contract.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)
1989 Nov 24, Romanian leader
Nicolae Ceausescu was unanimously re-elected Communist Party chief.
Within a month, he was overthrown in a popular uprising and executed
along with his wife, Elena, on Christmas Day.
(AP, 11/24/04)
1989 Dec 15, A popular uprising
that resulted in the downfall of Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu began as
demonstrators gathered in Timisoara to prevent the arrest of the
Rever-end Laszlo Tokes, a dissident clergyman.
(AP, 12/15/99)
1989 Dec 16, In Romania a revolt
began in Timisoara when authorities tried to forcibly move ethnic
Hungarian pastor Laszlo Toekes to a remote rural parish. Supporters
gathered outside his house and soon the site was teeming with
protesters. 6 days of fighting left 118 people killed.
(AP, 12/16/09)
1989 Dec 21, Romanian President
Nicolae Ceausescu delivered what turned out to be his fi-nal public
speech. The hard-line Communist ruler was visibly stunned as his
listeners began booing. Ceausescu fled from power and was executed four
days later.
(AP, 12/21/99)
1989 Dec 22, In Romania there was
a revolt and miners riots. Romania's hard-line Commu-nist ruler,
Nicolae Ceausescu, was toppled in a popular uprising following 23 years
of dictatorial rule. Ion Ileascu and other top Communist functionaries
of Ceausescu seized control. Ileascu ruled until Nov 1996.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A10)(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C4)(AP,
12/22/97)(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)
1989 Dec 23, Ousted Romanian
President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were cap-tured as they
were attempting to flee their country.
(AP, 12/23/99)
1989 Dec 25, Ousted Romanian
President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were exe-cuted
following a popular uprising. His regime had mobilized some 700,000
informants to keep tabs on the population of 23 million people.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B1)(AP, 12/25/97)(SSFC, 8/20/06,
p.A20)
1989 Dec 26, Romanian television
broadcast videotape of ousted President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife,
Elena, at their secret trial and footage of Ceausescu's body after his
execution. That same day, a provisional government took control of
Romania.
(AP, 12/26/99)
1989 Some 1,200 deaths occurred
during the revolution after the army officially changed sides.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)
1989 Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist
resigned after the fall of Ceausescu. He was accused of collaborating
with the Ceausescu regime. Church leaders pressed him to return 3
months later.
(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)
1989 The church was recognized by
the state following the collapse of communism.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1989 The village of Copsa Mica was
exposed as one of the most polluted places in Europe. Despite cleanup
efforts heavy contamination persisted in 2002.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.A1)
1990 Jan 8, Military tribunals in
Romania began trials of the country's dreaded security forces who stood
accused of resisting the revolution that toppled Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 1/8/00)
1990 Jan 27, In Romania, four top
associates of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu went on trial,
charged with abetting genocide.
(AP, 1/27/00)
1990 Mar 5, To the cheers of
onlookers, workers in Bucharest, Romania, finally succeeded in removing
a 25-foot, seven-ton bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin from its
foundation.
(AP, 3/5/00)
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)
1990 May 20, Romania's ruling
National Salvation Front scored victories in the country's first free
elections in more than 50 years.
(AP, 5/20/00)
1990 Jun, Miners, transported into
Bucharest in government vehicles, destroyed hundreds of Interior
Ministry files. Over 2 years well organized mobs of rural coal miners
descended on Bu-charest 4 times to knock the heads of student leaders,
opposition politicians and others.
(SFC, 6/15/98, p.A11)
1990 Dec 25, Romania’s former
monarch, King Michael, arrived on his first visit to his home-land
since Communist rulers forced him to abdicate four decades earlier. He
was deported by the new Bucharest government less than 12 hours later.
(AP, 12/25/00)
1990 Ilie Verdet, former prime
minister, formed the Socialist Party.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A20)
1990 Israelis began investing in
Romania and by 2006 had put in as much as $2 billion, much of it routed
through 3rd countries in order to take advantage of tax deals.
(WSJ, 10/4/06, p.A1)
1991 Sep 24, Some 5,000 coal
miners led by Miron Cozma rampaged through Bucharest leaving 3 dead and
nearly 300 injured. This prompted the resignation of Prime Minister
Petre Roman.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.A8)
1991 The Vatican raised
Metropolitan Alexandru Todea to the rank of Cardinal
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
1992 Sep, Ion Cioaba (1935-1997),
had himself crowned as King of the Gypsies with a 13-pound crown in
front of 5,000 followers.
(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A24)
1992 Andrei Ivantoc, a member of
the Popular Moldovan Front, was arrested by separatist
authorities of Trans-Dniester. A year later he and the three
others were sentenced on charges of committing terrorist acts against
citizens of Trans-Dniester. The Popular Moldovan Front called for the
reunification of Moldova with neighboring Romania. The group's members
were seen as martyrs by some in Moldova and Romania for their
opposition to the separatists. Ivan-toc was released in 2007.
(AP, 6/2/07)
1992-1996 Nicolae Vacaroiu led Romania’s
authoritarian ex-communist government.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)
1993 Nov, Marin Sorescu became the
minister of culture in the leftist government of Nicolae Vacaroiu.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.A24)
1995 Mar 27, Bernard Cornfeld
(67), Romanian-US financier (Fund of Funds), died.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1995 The capital is Bucharest.
National Day is Dec 1. The average monthly wage is $150. Premier
Nicolae Vacaroiu says the government is prepared to adopt new taxes to
reduce im-ports and help support the national currency.
(WSJ, 11/6/95, p.B-8F)
1996 The government rejected the
Dec. 24, '95 results of an election in the Dnestr region of neighboring
Moldava, a former Soviet state. The region voted for independence and
closer ties to Russia.
(WSJ, 1/4/96, p.A-1)
1996 May, Ilie Alexandru, aka the
J.R. of Romania, opened his copy of the Southfork Ranch of the TV
“Dallas” series in Slobozia as part of his Hermes Vacation park.
(SFC, 6/16/96, Zone 1 p.5)
1996 Jun 2, Victor Ciorbia of the
Democratic Convention won over Ilie Nastase, int’l tennis star
representing the Party of social Democracy, in preliminary elections
for the mayorship of Bucharest.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A14)
1996 Sep 16, Romania and Hungary
signed a treaty over the status of 1.6 million Hungarians in Romania
and a guarantee of borders.
(SFC, 9/17/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 3, The opposition party
won parliamentary elections ending control by ex-Communists.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 17, Centrist reformer
Emil Constantinescu (57), professor of geology, defeated Ion Ileascu in
presidential elections.
(SFC, 11/18/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov 19, In Romania Victor
Ciorbea, mayor of Bucharest, was named by the Peasant Party the next
prime minister.
(SFC, 11/20/96, p.C4)
1996 Nov 29, Emil Constantinescu
was sworn in as president.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A14)
1996 Dec 8, Marin Sorescu
(1936-1996), poet and former minister of culture, died.
(SFC, 12/11/96, p.A24)
1996 Sergiu Celibidache (b.1912),
conductor, died. In 2001 Deutsche Grammophon released a box set of his
selected performances.
(WSJ, 4/24/01, p.A22)
1997 Feb, A new economic package
was introduced that would reduce state subsidies, de-regulate food and
energy prices, close unprofitable state enterprises and private others.
(SFC, 2/24/96, p.A10)
1997 May 1, Romania apologized for
deporting tens of thousands of ethnic Germans to labor camps during
Communist rule or “selling” them by demanding cash from the Bonn
government for emigration permits.
(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A17)
1997 Jul 11, President Clinton was
cheered by tens of thousands of people in Bucharest, Romania, where he
raised hopes for NATO membership.
(AP, 7/11/98)
1997 Aug 7, Prime Minister Victor
Ciorbea announced the closure of 17 factories at the urging of the IMF.
30,000 jobs would be lost and the following day thousands protested the
closing of the essentially bankrupt companies.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1998 Jan, In Romania the IMF froze
the disbursement of a $530 million lending program.
(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)
1998 Mar 30, Prime Minister Victor
Ciorbea resigned and stepped down from his role as mayor of Bucharest.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)
1998 Apr 2, In Romania Radu
Vasile, an economist and leader of the national Peasant Party, was
named by Pres. Emil Constantinescu as the new prime minister. He soon
began reforms with an economic program to restore domestic and foreign
confidence.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)
1998 Apr 8, It was reported that
22 Romanian ships carrying 500 sailors were stranded worldwide due to
economic problems of the state shipping firm, Navrom.
(SFC, 4/898, p.A12)
1998 Jun 25, The Senate voted to
keep some 125 million secret police files locked away.
(SFC, 6/26/98, p.D2)
1998 Jun, Sorin Moisescu (d.2000),
independence leader, was appointed president of the Su-preme Court.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D5)
1998 Aug 4, A heat wave swept over
Eastern Europe and caused 20 deaths in Romania.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Nov 23, An Arctic cold wave
was reported to have killed 71 people across Europe over the last 3
days. 36 deaths were in Poland and 24 in Romania and Bulgaria.
(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 3, Brother Cleopa, an
Orthodox monk, died at age 87 at the 14th century Sihastra Monastery.
He was renowned for his lectures and sermons, some of which were
published un-der the title “Talks with Brother Cleopa,” in Sobornost,
an ecumenical Orthodox and Anglican journal published in Oxford.
(SFC, 12/7/98, p.A25)
1999 Jan 19, In Romania ten
thousand coal miners clashed with police on the 15th day of a strike to
protest low wages and possible layoffs.
(USAT, 1/20/99, p.8A)(SFC, 1/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 21, In Romania striking
miners stormed through police lines, killed one officer and took 50
captive. The interior minister was fired.
(WSJ, 1/22/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 22, In Romania miners
halted a violent strike after reaching a settlement with Prime Minister
Rady Vasile.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.C1)
1999 Feb 15, In Romania the
Supreme Court sentenced in absentia Miron Cozma, leader of the coal
miners, to an 18 year prison term.
(SFC, 2/16/99, p.A8)
1999 Feb 16, Romanian miners began
a fresh march on Bucharest.
(WSJ, 2/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 17, In Romania police
crushed a coal miners protest and arrested Miron Cozma. One person was
killed and a hundred were injured.
(SFC, 2/18/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 24, Tens of thousands of
workers in Bucharest and other cities protested for lower taxes and a
cut in utility rates.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A10)
1999 Apr 20, Bulgaria and Romania
offered to let NATO use their airspace to bomb Yugosla-via.
(WSJ, 4/21/99, A22)
1999 Apr 21, Romania and the IMF
reached a preliminary agreement for a $500 million loan.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A15)
1999 May 7, In Romania the Pope
began a 3-day visit. This was his first visit to a country with an
Orthodox Christian majority. The Pope was greeted by Orthodox Patriarch
Teoctist (84).
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/99, p.A10)
1999 Sep, A plastic polymer called
Guardian replaced the paper 2,000 leu bank note.
(WSJ, 9/3/99, p.A9)
1999 Nov 2, In Bucharest dozens of
orphaned and homeless teenagers protested and urged the government to
provide jobs and housing.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C5)
1999 Nov 7, Radu Teposu, writer,
died in a car crash at age 45. His work included a book on
postmodernism in Romania that was banned under the Communists.
(SFC, 11/8/99, p.C2)
1999 Nov 23, In Romania some 5,000
workers of the CNSLR-Fratia trade union gathered in Bucharest to
protest plummeting living standards.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C5)
1999 Dec 10, The EU granted
preliminary consideration for membership to Bulgaria, Latvia,
Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Malta.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 14, In Romania Pres.
Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile, though the
constitution did not grant him that power. Alexandru Athanasiu, the
Labor and Social Welfare minister, was named to replace Vasile. The
average monthly salary was down to $89.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 16, Mugur Isarescu, the
central bank chief, was appointed prime minister following a revolt by
Peasants party ministers.
(WSJ, 12/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec, In an effort to exorcise
some of its past the government began an auction of the personal goods
of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Romania passed legislation to
allow the opening of files in the archive of Securitate, Ceausescu’s
hated security police. Disclosures began in 2006.
(SSFC, 8/20/06, p.A20)
1999 Renault of France spent $50
million to acquire a controlling stake in Dacia, a sickly Ro-manian car
maker formerly owned by the state. The first Renault-Dacia Logan was
produced in 2004. The millionth Logan was produced in mid 2008.
(Econ, 11/15/08, SR p.14)
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 13, In Yugoslavia the
cyanide spill from Romania reached the Danube and weak-ened to
nonlethal levels. Life in the Tisa (Tisza) River in Hungary and Serbia
was devastated and Serbia threatened to demand compensation at an
int'l. court.
(SFC, 2/14/00, p.A16)
2000 Mar 10, In Romania some
20,000 tons of metal pollutants escaped into the Vaser River from the
state-owned Baia Borsa mine after a dam broke following heavy rains and
melting snow.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A9)
2000 Mar 25, Paul Calinescu, the
father of Romanian cinema, died at age 98.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.E2)
2000 Apr 6, Sorin Moisescu (61),
president of the Supreme Court, died.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D5)
2000 Nov 26, Presidential
elections were held. A Dec 10 runoff was expected between Social
Democrat Ion Iliescu and ultranationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor. Annual
inflation stood at 45%.
(SSFC, 11/26/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 10, In Romania Ion
Iliescu, former Communist turned social democrat, won the presidential
runoff elections over nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor 70-30%.
(SFC, 12/11/00, p.A12)
2000 Dec 28, Parliament approved
Adrian Nastase, former foreign minister, as prime minister of a new
leftist minority government.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.B6)
2001 Jan 18, There was a cyanide
spill in the Siret River. 72 people were later hospitalized after
eating river fish.
(WSJ, 1/25/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb, Romania enacted Law 10
to govern restitution for properties confiscated between 1945 and 1989.
In 2006 Romania passed legislation to return property that had been
confis-cated under Communist rule, to former owners and to establish a
fund to pay damages for as-sets that could not be returned.
(www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/64425.htm)(SFC, 5/24/06,
p.A2)
2001 Mar 7, The Parliament voted
to require citizens to notify police if foreign guests stay over 15
days. It also voted to make it a crime for anyone to divulge state
secrets.
(WSJ, 3/8/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 21, Ilie Verdet, former
prime minister, died at age 75.
(SFC, 3/22/01, p.A20)
2001 Jun 5, Ten people were killed
In Constanta when workers set off an explosion while welding the hull
of a Maltese oil tanker.
(SFC, 6/6/01, p.C3)
2001 Aug 7, A gas explosion in the
Vulcan coal mine killed at least 14 miners.
(SFC, 8/8/01, p.A9)
2001 Sep 27, Gellu Naum,
surrealist poet, playwright and translator, died at age 86. His work
included 20 poetry books, of which the 1st was “The Incendiary
Traveler” (1936) and the novel “Zenobia” (1985).
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.A18)
2001 Oct, Mohammad F. Abdul Razak,
the 1st secretary at the Iraqi Embassy in Romania, was asked to leave
for unsavory practices.
(WSJ, 12/20/01, p.A12)
2001 Nov, New bonds were to be
issued to finance the Sighisoara Tourism Development Fund and a planned
Dracula theme park to open in 2003.
(WSJ, 10/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 3, US Sec. of State
Powell met in Romania with officials from 55 nations in a con-ference
on fighting terrorism.
(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Daniel Morar (b.1966), Chief
Attorney of the Romanian National Anticorruption Director-ate, began
prosecuting corruption related offenses. His term ended in 2008.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Morar)(Econ,
8/2/08, p.53)
2002 May 21, Cardinal Alexandru
Todea (89), symbol of Catholic resistance to communism, died in Targu
Mures.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
2002 Jun 11, Thousands of Romania
state workers jammed a square in downtown Bucharest, blaming the
government for a decline in living standards and calling for its
resignation.
(AP, 6/12/02)
2002 Jul 14, A bus with 52
passengers, mostly Polish students, crashed in western Romania, killing
five people and injuring 26.
(AP, 7/14/02)
2002 Oct 9, The European Union's
executive Commission declared Bulgaria, the Czech Re-public, Cyprus,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia,
and Slo-vakia nearly ready for EU membership and recommended they be
invited to join in 2004. Ro-mania and Bulgaria likely will be delayed
until 2007 because of weak economies, the Commis-sion said, adding
Turkey was the weakest link among candidates.
(AP, 10/9/02)
2002 Nov 21, The Baltic nations of
Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania joined former communist states Bulgaria,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia as the next wave of NATO states.
(AP, 11/21/02)
2002 Nov 23, President Bush
visited Vilnius, Lithuania, and Bucharest, Romania, where he vowed to
defend hard-won freedoms behind the former Iron Curtain.
(AP, 11/23/03)
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 re-gion 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, In Romania Kurt W.
Treptow of Miami Beach, Fl., was sentenced to the maximum of seven
years in for offenses involving two girls, ages 10 and 13, whom he
invited into his home in Iasi. A Romanian woman was also convicted of
being his accomplice. Treptow was re-leased in 2007 after writing a
book entitled "The life and Times of Vlad Dracul" while in prison.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2002 In Romania almost 90% of the
country’s people at this time were Eastern Orthodox and 1% Eastern Rite
Catholics.
(SFC, 5/25/02, p.A27)
2003 Jan 1, Dumitru Tinu (62), a
leading Romanian journalist who covered the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia and steered his newspaper along independent lines after
communism ended, died in a car accident.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2003 Mar 8, In Romania 5
Iraqi diplomats were expelled for “activities incompatible with their
status.” Last week the US expelled two U.N.-based Iraqi diplomats
and identified 300 Iraqis in 60 countries, some operating as diplomats
out of Iraqi embassies, whom it wanted expelled.
(AP, 3/10/03)
2003 Mar 20, Some 600 US and
Romanian ground troops in Afghanistan began Operation Valiant Strike,
an intensified search for Taliban, al Qaeda and loyalists to Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar.
(SSFC, 3/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Jun 17, Romania's government
acknowledged that its former leaders deported and ex-terminated
Romanian Jews during World War II.
(AP, 6/17/03)
2003 Sep 22, The jawbone of a
cave-man living in what is now Romania, found in 2002 in Pestera cu
Oase, was reported as the oldest fossil from an early modern human to
be found in Europe. It was carbon-dated to between 34,000 and 36,000
years ago.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Oct 6, Elisabeta Rizea (91),
a Romanian anti-communist resistance fighter whose defi-ance of the
regime made her a symbol of the fight against tyranny, died.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct 19, In Romania government
leaders held an emergency session as many voters avoided the polls,
throwing into doubt a referendum on a new constitution aimed at helping
the country join the European Union.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 21, Romanians
overwhelmingly approved a new constitution designed to prepare the
formerly communist country for membership in the EU.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2004 Mar 29, Pres. Bush hosted a
White House ceremony to welcome Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the NATO alliance.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 2, In Brussels an
official ceremony welcomed Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the NATO alliance.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A11)
2004 Jun 2, Romania’s Pres. Ion
Iliescu unveiled the new Logan sedan, a joint venture be-tween Renault
and Romania’s Dacia. Starting prices were around $6,100. In 2007 nearly
80,000 Logans were sold in western Europe.
(SFC, 6/3/04, C5)(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.7)
2004 Aug 7, The Romanian sitcom
"The Winding Road to Europe" featured villagers in the fictional La
Europa pub and swapping stories about how joining the EU will change
their lives. The European Union's Romania office has funded 12
15-minute episodes of "Winding Road" at $16,800 each, 4 of which had
already aired.
(AP, 8/7/04)
2004 Nov 28, Romanians voted for a
president to succeed Ion Iliescu and lead the former communist country
into the European Union. A run off was scheduled for Dec 12 when
neither ruling Socialist’s Nastase nor Bucharest Mayor Basescu received
50%.
(AP, 11/28/04)(WSJ, 11/29/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 4, A car accident in
Bucharest killed Teofil Peter of the rock band Compact. In 2006 US
Marine Sgt Christopher VanGoethem, a US embassy guard, was acquitted of
negligent homicide by a Marine court in Virginia.
(SFC, 2/1/06, p.A3)
2004 Dec 12, Romanians returned to
the polls for a presidential runoff between PM Adrian Nastase and
Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu. Reformist opposition candidate Traian
Basescu won Romania's presidential runoff election.
(AP, 12/13/04)
2004 Dec 14, In Romania
Pres.-elect Traian Basescu opened talks to form a coalition gov-ernment
with a party formerly allied with his opponent and one representing
ethnic Hungarians.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Romania’s main political
parties formed the Coalition for a Clean Parliament, an anti-corruption
pact.
(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)
2005 Jan 1, Romania enacted a law
forbidding int’l. adoptions except to biological grandpar-ents in an
effort to help it win EU membership.
(WSJ, 1/3/05, p.A1)
2005 Jan 1, Romania was forecast
for 5.2% annual GDP growth with a population at 21.7 mil-lion and GDP
per head at $3,720.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)
2005 Jan 16, A 66-year-old
Romanian woman became the world's oldest woman recorded to give birth
when she delivered a daughter by cesarean section.
(AP, 1/17/05)
2005 Mar 28, In Iraq 3 Romanian
journalists were abducted near their Baghdad hotel.
(AP, 3/29/05)
2005 Apr 13, The European
Parliament approved the entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the EU in
2007, but it said both countries still need to carry out necessary
reforms.
(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Re-cipients
included Stephanie Daniel Roth of Romania for fighting an open-cast
gold mine.
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 Apr 22, Al Jazeera television
reported that insurgents gave Romania 4 days to withdraw its
troops from Iraq in order to save the lives of 3 journalists kidnapped
last month.
(Reuters, 4/22/05)
2005 Apr 29, Heavy rains in
western Romania have flooded hundreds of villages, forcing 3,700 people
to abandon their homes and disrupting rail and road traffic.
(Reuters, 4/29/05)
2005 May 6, Romania's foreign
minister said his government would keep its troops in Iraq supporting
postwar operations despite the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists.
(AP, 5/6/05)
2005 May 12, Austrian authorities
reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led by Romanian,
Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than 5,000 East
Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions in tiny hiding
spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 22, In Iraq 3 Romanian
journalists and their Iraqi-American guide were freed after nearly two
months in captivity. Mohammed Munaf, their Iraqi-American translator,
was later tried and convicted on charges that he assisted in the
kidnapping. In 2006 Munaf was sen-tenced to death.
(AP, 5/22/05)(SSFC, 10/15/06, p.A20)
2005 Jun 15, In Romania Maricica
Irina Cornici (23), an Orthodox nun, was found dead, gagged and chained
to a cross. Father Daniel (29), the superior of the Holy Trinity
monastery, had ordered the crucifixion of the young nun because she was
"possessed by the devil." The Orthodox priest faced murder
charges and was unrepentant as he celebrated a funeral mass for his
alleged victim. [see Jun 22]
(AFP, 6/18/05)
2005 Jun 22, A Romanian monk and
four nuns were charged with murder after a nun died during an exorcism.
Maricica Irina Cornici (23) was crucified and left without food for
three days. [see Jun 15] In 2007 the monk and 4 nuns were given prison
sentences from 5-14 years.
(AP, 6/23/05)(AP, 2/19/07)
2005 Jul 7, Romania's PM Calin
Popescu Tariceanu said his Cabinet would resign and early elections
would be called after a court blocked essential justice reforms
required by the EU.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 17, Officials said heavy
rains and flash floods have killed 20 people in the past week and
inundated tens of thousands of homes in Romania. Death for the month
reached 26.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 27, The UN started
evacuating more than 400 refugees from a camp in Kyrgyzstan and will
fly them to a third country to keep them from being sent home to
Uzbekistan where they fear prosecution. Uzbekistan has been pressuring
Kyrgyzstan to hand over the refugees, and Kyrgyz officials relented in
recent weeks, sending at least 87 of them back.
(AP, 7/27/05)
2005 Jul 29, A plane with 440
Uzbek refugees left Kyrgyzstan for Romania.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Aug 22, Romania’s PM Calin
Tariceanu reshuffled his center-right government, replac-ing four
ministers including those in charge of finance and European integration
after criticism of several cabinet members.
(AP, 8/22/05)
2005 Oct 6, Romania said it has
deported five students accused of having ties to al-Qaida and trying to
recruit members of the country's Muslim community.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 8, Romania reported new
cases of avian flu in the Danube delta on the Black Sea and started to
cull hundreds of birds to prevent the disease from spreading.
(AP, 10/8/05)
2005 Oct 9, The slaughter of
thousands of domestic fowl in Romania and Turkey began as a precaution
against the spread of bird flu after both countries confirmed their
first cases of the disease over the weekend.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 15, The European
Commission said tests have confirmed a link between the bird flu found
in Romania and the virus that has devastated flocks in Asia and turned
up in Turkey.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Nov 3, European Union
officials said they would investigate a report that the CIA set up
secret jails in Eastern Europe to interrogate top al-Qaida suspects.
The international Red Cross also said it asked the US to let a
representative visit detainees if such a facility exists. At least 10
nations denied that the prisons were in their territory. Human Rights
Watch in New York said it has evidence indicating the CIA transported
suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania.
(AP, 11/3/05)
2005 Dec 6, US Sec. of State
Condoleeza Rice signed an agreement with Romania to open US military
bases there. One site was identified by Human Rights Watch as the site
for a clan-destine prison.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Dec 22, Romania's prime
minister rejected US calls to allow adoptions by foreigners of about
1,000 Romanian children.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Romania introduced a flat tax
of 16%.
(Econ, 3/5/05, p.54)
2005 Romania’s GDP per head was
$4,490.
(Econ, 1/6/07, p.43)
2006 Jan 14, In southwestern
Romania 7 miners were killed and five injured in a gas explo-sion at a
mine. Union leaders blamed it on a lack of investment in safety
measures.
(AP, 1/14/06)
2006 Jan 29, In Bucharest,
Romania, a stray dog killed a Japanese businessman. The mayor called
for a crash program of canine sterilization and euthanasia to control
the city’s 60,000 stray dogs.
(www.inyourpocket.com/romania/bucharest/en/)(Econ,
2/4/06, p.48)
2006 Feb 16, In Romania
authorities investigating the leak of secret military documents,
in-cluding details on coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
arrested Marian Garleanu, a Roma-nian journalist, for possession of
leaked material. Garleanu denied any wrongdoing and said he was
targeted because he has repeatedly exposed corruption in the Ministry
of Defense.
(AP, 2/17/06)
2006 Apr 5, Home Secretary Charles
Clarke said London would press for Romania to be granted membership of
the European Union "as soon as possible" as he praised the country's
work against people trafficking.
(AFP, 4/5/06)
2006 Apr 13, The Danube reached
record-high levels in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia, flood-ing fertile
farmland as authorities in southeastern Europe considered ordering
evacuations.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Jun 20, In southern
Afghanistan an explosion tore apart a coalition tank, killing one
Ro-manian soldier and wounding four others.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 29, Romania's PM Calin
Popescu Tariceanu proposed withdrawing 890 troops from Iraq because of
high casualty levels and the cost of the operation.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Aug 18, In Greece a
700-year-old icon, said to have the power to work miracles, was
discovered stolen from the cliff-side Elona Monastery. In September
police arrested a Roma-nian national in Crete and recovered the Madonna
and Child icon.
(SSFC, 10/8/06, p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/grxc8)
2006 Aug 22, The Orizont, a leased
Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran, came under fire from Iranian
military vessels and was later occupied by Iranian troops. A 2nd
Romanian rig had recently been towed from Iranian waters due to unpaid
bills.
(AP, 8/22/06)(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.A8)
2006 Aug, In Romania the heads of
the leading spy agencies quit along with the top prosecu-tor after they
failed to keep track of Omar Hayssam. The Syrian-born businessman,
arrested on terrorism charges, fled Romania after being paroled for
health reasons.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.62)
2006 Sep 2, In Romania liberal
leaders expelled Mona Musca, one of the country's most popular
politicians, from the party after she admitted to having collaborated
with the Securitate secret police under the communist dictatorship of
Nicolae Ceausescu.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 26, The European
Commission recommended that Bulgaria and Romania join the EU next year,
but under some of the harshest terms ever faced by new members.
(AP, 9/26/06)
2006 Oct 24, Britain said
Bulgarians and Romanians will have only limited rights to work in
Britain for at least a year after their countries join the European
Union on January 1.
(AP, 10/24/06)
2006 Dec 10, In Romania more than
6,000 inmates at 24 prisons took part in hunger strikes and other
protests to demand amnesty and better living conditions.
(AP, 12/10/06)
2006 Romania handed over key
Securitate files and a master index to an independent insti-tute. In
2008 the government issued an emergency decree to keep the institute
open after a court ruled its work unlawful.
(Econ, 5/31/08, SR p.13)
2006 At least 2 million of
Romania’s 22 million people worked abroad, mostly in farm jobs.
(Econ, 2/4/06, p.48)
2007 Jan 1, Bulgaria and Romania
joined the EU. Some 30,000 Israelis gained EU citizenship due to their
dual registration in Romania.
(WSJ, 10/4/07, p.A11)(AP, 1/1/07)
2007 Feb 1, Romanian President
Traian Basescu told Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that pi-rated
Microsoft software helped Romania to build a vibrant technology
industry.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 19, Daniel Petru
Corogeanu, a Romanian priest, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In
2005 he had led a dayslong exorcism ritual with 4 nuns for Maricica
Irina Cornici (23), a young nun, that ended with the woman's death. One
of the nuns, Nicoleta Arcalianu, was sen-tenced to eight years in
prison, and the other three, Adina Cepraga, Elena Otel and Simona
Bardanas, received five-year sentences.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Romania's parliament
voted to suspend the popular president who ushered in economic and
social reforms to help the country join the European Union, accusing
him of abusing his constitutional powers. President Traian Basescu had
earlier vowed to resign "within five minutes" if lawmakers voted to
suspend him. His resignation would prompt a new election within three
months, and he has said he would run again for office. Former president
Nicolae Vacaroiu (1992-1996) became acting president.
(AP, 4/19/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.61)
2007 May 2, Romania’s Parliament
approved an agreement allowing the US to use four mili-tary bases and
station up to 3,000 troops in the former communist country.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 May 19, Romanians voted on
whether to impeach President Traian Basescu, who has been accused of
violating the constitution but remains popular among the public.
Basescu, sus-pended on grounds he abused power, easily survived a
referendum on his impeachment, with partial results indicating about
three-fourths of the votes supporting the leader.
(AP, 5/19/07)(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 23, Romania's suspended
President Traian Basescu was reinstated after he won a referendum on
his removal from office.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 27, Christian Mungiu, a
Romanian director, won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for his “3
Weeks and 2 Days,” which looked at abortion during the communist era.
Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a film on the inequities of America’s health
system, also featured at Cannes.
(WSJ, 5/29/07, p.A1)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.32)
2007 Jun 8, A European
investigator issued a report saying the CIA ran secret prisons in
Po-land and Romania from 2003 to 2005 to interrogate detainees in the
war on terror.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 9, In Romania police used
tear gas against protesters who hurled stones at the an-nual gay rights
parade in Bucharest.
(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 14, Romania's government
defended its decision to return "Dracula's Castle" to members of the
former royal family, denying allegations that the decision was illegal.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 19, In Romania hundreds
of retirees took to the streets in Bucharest and about 20 other towns
to demand that pensions be raised to at least 45% of the average
national salary and other benefits. Romania numbered 6 million retirees
out of a population of 22 million.
(AP, 6/20/07)
2007 Jun 23, In Romania a bear
attacked a group of US tourists on a remote trail in the Car-pathian
Mountains, killing a woman and injuring two other people.
(AP, 6/24/07)
2007 Jun 26, Sizzling temperatures
in Greece, Italy and Romania brought power cuts and brush fires in a
heat wave that has led to at least 38 deaths in southeast Europe in
recent days.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jul 22, The death toll from
Romania's heat wave rose to 15 after 6 more people died as temperatures
hovered around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
(AP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul 27, Victor Frunza (72), a
Romanian anti-communist dissident and writer, died in Denmark of a
heart attack. He was forced to leave Romania in 1980 after writing a
letter critical of the communist regime led by dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu. While in Romania, Frunza secretly wrote a history of
communism in the country that was published in Denmark in 1984. He also
wrote essays championing human rights and published a political
magazine.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Jul 30, Patriarch Teoctist
(b.1915), head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, died in Bu-charest, He
made history when he invited the late John Paul II to his Orthodox
country in 1999 but was criticized for being too close to former
Communists.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Aug 1, It was reported that
more than 100 Serbian Gypsies have crossed the border il-legally into
neighboring Romania in recent days and filed applications for asylum
claiming they were subject to abuse and attacks in Serbia.
(AP, 8/1/07)
2007 Aug 5, Florian Pittis (63),
Romanian actor and folk musician, died of cancer. He helped popularize
Western rock bands in communist Romania.
(AP, 8/6/07)
2007 Aug 17, Romania and the US
started military training exercises to test installations that will
become the first US facilities in the former Soviet bloc, a plan
opposed by Russia.
(Reuters, 8/30/07)
2007 Sep 15, It was reported that
nearly 90% of Romania’s 22 million people adhere to the Romanian
Orthodox Church. Its $4 billion fortune makes it the country’s 6th
biggest enterprise.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.66)
2007 Oct 22,
Romania's President Traian Basescu apologized for the deportation
of thou-sands of Gypsies to Nazi death camps during World War II, the
first time a government official has done so publicly.
(AP, 10/23/07)
2007 Oct 30, In Italy Giovanna
Reggiani (47) was brutally attacked as she returned home in northern
Rome. She died 2 days later. Nicolae Mailat, a Romanian Gypsy, admitted
to snatch-ing her bag but denied her murder. Her attack triggered a
public outcry.
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.63)
2007 Nov 1, Italy's president
signed a decree allowing the expulsion of EU citizens "for rea-sons of
public safety" to fight "episodes of heavy violence and ferocious
crime." This followed the Oct 30 attack on a 47-year-old woman as she
walked along a road after dark toward bar-racks where she lived. She
was beaten, dragged through mud and left half naked in a ditch. The
woman died 2 days later. Police arrested Nicolae Mailat a Romanian in
his 20s, who lives in a shack in one of several sprawling settlements
on the outskirts of Rome.
(AP, 11/2/07)
2007 Nov 2, Italy began deporting
Romanians with criminal records in response to a streak of violent
crime blamed on immigrants. In Rome up to 10 people wearing motorcycle
helmets at-tacked a group of Romanians with knives, metal bars and
sticks in the parking lot of a super-market. Three Romanians were
injured. As part of the crackdown, bulldozers in Rome for a second day
knocked down shantytowns where thousands of foreigners lived without
permits.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Dec 1, At the 20th annual
European Film Awards in Berlin Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's "4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" won the best film prize.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 New amendments to Romania’s
penal code prescribed jail sentences of up to 7 years for journalists
who publish material showing officials involved in bribe-taking. The
code also raised the financial threshold for corruption charges.
(Econ, 11/3/07, p.64)
2007 The population of Romania
numbered about 22 million people and counted 4.5 million farms and
smallholdings. This represented almost a third of all the farm holdings
in the EU.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.63)
2008 Jan 24, In Britain almost two
dozen Romanians were arrested after police swooped on a child slave
gang.
(Reuters, 1/24/08)
2008 Jan 31, Romania’s
Constitutional Court struck down the 1999 law that opened Roma-nia's
secret police archives. It effectively forced the Council for the Study
of the Securitate Ar-chives to shut down, and makes its previous
decisions null.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 May 19, The US Justice
Department said international investigators have busted a vast Internet
fraud network and charged 38 suspects, most of them Romanians living in
the US.
(AFP, 5/19/08)
2008 Jun 13, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber hit a NATO military convoy, causing
casualties. A Romanian soldier was killed and three others injured in
Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province. In south-central Uruzgan
province, Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 17 Taliban. In eastern
Paktia province, an operation by US-led coalition forces resulted in
the deaths of a woman and a number of militants. In Ghazni province a
coalition air strike killed seven Taliban militants.
(AFP, 6/13/08)
2008 Jun 30, Brahim Deby, the
eldest son of Chad’s President Idriss Deby, was found dead in the
basement of his apartment building in a Paris suburb. He was
asphyxiated by chemicals from a fire extinguisher that lay near his
body. In late November Romanian police arrested a French-Romanian
national identified as Marius C. after on a warrant from France.
(AP,
11/28/08)(www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02560147.htm)
2008 Jul 27, Floods in western
Ukraine killed 22 people, including 4 children, and 5 in neighboring
Romania after 5 days of nonstop rain. A senior government official
described them as the worst in a century. Heavy rain in the
southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers to
overflow. The flooding affected more than 40,000 houses and led to the
evacuation of some 20,000 people.
(Reuters, 7/27/08)(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Aug 5, The UN said heavy
rains and storms have led to some of the worst floods in 40 years in
parts of Ukraine, Moldova and Romania since July 22, causing great
damage to homes, infrastructure and farmland. In Ukraine, 34 people
have been killed in the west of the country along the Dnestr and Prut
rivers; in Moldova, three people are reported to have drowned in the
capital Chisinau; in Romania five people have been killed.
(AFP, 8/5/08)
2008 Oct 7, In Romania some 7,000
workers and trade unionists marched around the parlia-ment in Bucharest
to demand higher salaries and better working conditions.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 23, In Romania vandals
rampaged through a sprawling Jewish cemetery in Bucha-rest, toppling
tombstones and smashing markers for as many as 200 graves.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Nov 6, Romania's defense
minister says the country's 501 peacekeepers in Iraq will all leave by
the end of the year.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Nov 6, A Romanian computer
programmer who hacked into computers used by the U.S. Navy, the
Department of Energy and NASA was convicted on Romanian charges and
ordered to pay thousands in damages. Victor Faur (28) was also given a
16-month suspended prison sentence. In 2006 Faur was indicted in the
United States on nine federal counts of computer in-trusion and one of
conspiracy.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 15, In southwestern
Romania two explosions in a coal mine killed eight miners and four
emergency workers.
(AP, 11/15/08)
2008 Nov 23, In southern Brazil
weekend rains caused rivers to overflow their banks. The re-sulting
floods and mudslides left at least 99 people dead. In northeastern
Paragominas a mob of about 3,000 people, enraged by a crackdown on
illegal logging, trashed a government office, and tried to attack
environmental workers.
(AP, 11/25/08)(AP, 11/24/08)(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 30, Romanians trickled to
the polls to elect a new parliament, as the leftist Social Democrats
and right-wing Liberal Democrats battled it out ahead of PM Calin
Tariceanu's Lib-erals. The leftist Social Democrats won the most votes,
but failed to get enough support to take power outright.
(AP, 11/30/08)(SFC, 12/1/08, p.A4)
2008 Dec 1, Romania's
parliamentary election results showed the centrist and leftist parties
less than a percentage point apart with more than 90 percent of the
vote counted, raising the prospect of tough negotiations to form a
coalition.
(AP, 12/1/08)
2008 Dec 5, In Romania Constantin
Ticu Dumitrescu (80), once jailed as a communist-era "enemy of the
state," died after years of fighting to reveal details of the country's
troubled past.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 10, In Romania Theodor
Stolojan (65), former World Bank economist, was chosen to become the
next prime minister. On Dec 15 Stolojan renounced the job and was
replaced by Emil Boc (42), the leader of the same centrist Democratic
Liberal Party.
(SFC, 12/11/08, p.A4)(AP, 12/15/08)
2009 Jan 3, Russian gas flows to
four European Union countries fell normal levels after Mos-cow cut off
supplies to Ukraine in a pricing row with no talks in sight to resolve
the dispute. Bul-garia's Bulgargaz joined energy firms in Poland,
Romania and Hungary in saying they had noted falls in supply.
(Reuters, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 6, A natural gas crisis
loomed over Europe, as a contract dispute between Russia and Ukraine
shut off Russian gas supplies to six countries and reduced gas
deliveries to sev-eral others. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania,
Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Feb 4, Romania’s central bank
cut interest rates by a quarter point to 10%, still the highest in the
EU.
(WSJ, 2/5/09, p.A8)
2009 Feb 8, Voters in Switzerland
approved an expanded labor deal with the European Union that allows
Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the Alpine republic.
(AP, 2/8/09)
2009 Mar 25, Romania was given a
loan totaling 20 billion euros (27 billion dollars) by the IMF, the EU,
the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD). An austerity program accompanied the loans.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Apr 23, Former King Michael
of Romania took the unusual step of endorsing his son-in-law as a
candidate in the country's next presidential election.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Jun 8, Final 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 Par-liament. 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
re-mained the largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 23, Northern Ireland’s
government said more than 100 Romanian Gypsies who suf-fered racist
attacks and intimidation in Belfast are being flown back home at
taxpayer expense.
(AP, 6/24/09)
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 26, In Bucharest,
Romania, fans at first politely applauded the Roma performers sharing a
stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread
discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies, and the cheers gave way to
jeers. Official Romanian data put the lo-cal Roma population at 500,000.
(AP, 8/27/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Romania Gen.
Nicolae Plesita (b.1929), a die-hard Communist and ruthless chief of
the Securitate secret police (1980-1984), died. He had arranged shelter
in Romania for terrorist Carlos the Jackal, and was tried for the 1981
bombing in Munich of Radio Free Europe.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 1, Romania's coalition
government collapsed after nine ministers from the Social Democrats
quit to protest the firing of interior minister Dan Nica. Social
Democratic Party leader Mircea Geoana said the ministers resigned "in
solidarity" with Nica, who was fired by PM Emil Boc on Sep 28 over a
statement about potential fraud in the upcoming Nov 22 election.
(AP, 10/1/09)
2009 Oct 8, Herta Mueller (56) won
the Nobel Prize in literature in an award seen as a nod to the 20th
anniversary of communism's collapse. She was member of Romania's ethnic
German minority persecuted for her critical depictions of life behind
the Iron Curtain. She made her de-but in 1982 with a collection of
short stories titled "Niederungen," or "Nadirs," depicting the
harshness of life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania. It
was promptly censored by the communist government. Some of her works
have been translated into English, French and Spanish, including "The
Passport," "The Land of Green Plums," "Traveling on One Leg" and "The
Appointment."
(AP, 10/8/09)
2009 Oct 8, Romania unveiled a
monument in memory of some 300,000 Jews and Gypsies killed during the
Holocaust in the country, which at times denied that the extermination
even happened.
(AP, 10/8/09)
2009 Oct 13, Romania's government
fell in a confidence vote in Parliament. Lawmakers said it failed to
improve the economy after going into recession following 3 years of
growth. A total of 254 parliamentary deputies and senators voted to
oust PM Emil Boc, more than the 236 needed, and 176 voted against.
Under the constitution it was up to Pres. Traian Basescu to name a new
prime minister.
(AP, 10/13/09)
2009 Nov 22, Romania held
elections. President Traian Basescu received 32.7% of the vote, while
Mircea Geoana won 30.1%, in first official results based on around 85%
of the vote counted in an election tainted by accusations of fraud.
(AP, 11/23/09)
2009 Dec 6, Romanians voted in a
presidential run-off hoping to put an end to a political standoff
holding up crucial international aid to the recession-wracked EU
member. Center-right President Traian Basescu, a former sea captain
promising tough state reforms, faced Social-Democrat Mircea Geoana, an
ex-diplomat who has pledged to maintain jobs and "reunite Ro-mania"
after years of political squabbling. Basescu won with 50.33% of the
vote. Supporters of Geoana charged that the election was marred by
fraud.
(AFP, 12/6/09)(SFC, 12/8/09, p.A4)
2009 Dec 11, Romania's
Constitutional Court ordered a re-examination of ballots declared void
in the Dec 6 presidential election amid allegations of widespread fraud.
(AP, 12/11/09)
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