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Czechoslovakia
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Due to its ethnic diversity, the separate histories and greatly differing religious, cultural, and social traditions of the Czechs and Slovaks, the new state was far from being a stable political entity. The Germans and Magyars (Hungarians) of Czechoslovakia openly agitated against the territorial settlements. Although the constitution of 1920 provided for autonomy for Ruthenia, in practice autonomy was constantly postponed.
Hitler's rise in Germany, the German annexation (Anschluss) of Austria, the resulting revival of revisionism in Hungary and of agitation for autonomy in Slovakia, and the appeasement policy of the Western powers (France and the United Kingdom) left Czechoslovakia without allies, exposed to hostile Germany and Hungary on three sides and to unsympathetic Poland on the north.
Beneš resigned the presidency in October of 1938 and was succeeded by Emil Hácha[?]. In November of 1938, the truncated state, renamed Czecho-Slovakia, was reconstituted in three autonomous units - Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia.
In March 1939, Hitler forced Hácha to surrender Czecho-Slovakia to German control and made Bohemia and Moravia into a German protectorate. Slovakia gained nominal independence as a satellite state under Josef Tiso[?]. Ruthenia was awarded to Hungary. After the outbreak of the war, Beneš set up a provisional government in London, and Czech military units fought alongside the Allied forces.
Except for the brutalities of the German occupation, Czechoslovakia suffered relatively little from the war. Prague was taken over in May 1945 by Soviet troops, and both Soviet and Allied troops were withdrawn in the same year.
On January 19, 1969 student Jan Palach[?] set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square[?] to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968.
to the wall and began to dust off a peculiarly atrocious chromo with his
collector, averted his face and said:
"Take it, but don't let me see it go. It's the sole remaining Rembrandt
original, the only supreme example of that mighty school of art which--"
"Art! It's the sickest looking thing I--"
The colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly dusting it.
"Take this one too--the gem of my collection--the only genuine Fra
people will think I've robbed a' nigger barber-shop."
As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted with an anguished
tints in the Angelico--"
But the man.html">man.html">man.html">man was gone.
Washington re-appeared and said he had looked everywhere, and so had Mrs.
could get his eye on a certain man about this time--no need to hunt up
mean. Robbed the bank.html">bank in Tahlequah."
"Do they have banks in Tahlequah?"
"Yes--a bank, anyway. He was suspected of robbing it. Whoever did it
of five thousand. I believe I saw.html">saw.html">saw that very man, on my way east."
"No--is that so?
"I certainly saw a man on the train, the first day I struck the railroad,
a lacking arm.html">arm."
"Why don't you get him arrested and claim the reward?"
"I couldn't. I had to get a requisition, of course. But I meant to stay
didn't know it in time. As we moved out of the station I saw him going
reward?"
"What shall we do, then?"
The Colonel reflected.
"I'll tell you. Put a personal in the Baltimore Sun. Word it like this:
A. DROP ME A LINE, PETE.
"Hold on. Which arm has he lost?"
"The right."
"Good. Now then--
.
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