Czechoslovakia is no more. Seventy-four years after the philosopher-statesman Tomas Garrague Masaryk founded his country out of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the main Czech and Slovak political parties said that they had agreed to split the republic into two separate states. The announcement caused gloom in every part of Europe, east and west. Like its playwright-president, Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia stood for tolerance, humanity, humour, integrity, courage and the hope of a better future. Of all the countries which threw off Communism in 1989, Czechoslovakia, with its strong democratic traditions and once vibrant economy, was considered the most likely to make a successful, stable transition to a freemarket democracy. The divorce was negotiated in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, after 14 hours of negotiations between Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar, respective leaders of the Czech Civic Democratic Party and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. They agreed to form a 10-member caretaker federal government to oversee the split, and said the Czech and Slovak regional parliaments would settle the final constitutional arrangements for the separation.
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1840 American inventor Samuel Morse is granted a patent for his electro-magnetic telegraph system.
1863 West Virginia becomes the 35th state of the US.
1867 US President Andrew Jackson proclaims treaty for purchase of Alaska from Russia.
1891 Britain and the Netherlands define their boundaries in Borneo.
1933 Army stages coup in Siam, now Thailand.
1941 The US Army Air Forces is established, replacing the US Army Air Corps, later it becomes the US Air Force in 1947.
1961 Kuwait is admitted to Arab League.
1963 US and Soviet Union sign an agreement to set up a hotline between the two superpowers.
1968 American sprinter Jim Hines becomes the first man to run 100 metres in less than 10 seconds, setting a world record of 9.95 seconds.
1973 Juan Peron returns to Argentina after 18-year exile.
1982 Sajaa gas facility is inaugurated in Sharjah.
1987 UAE Supreme Council reinstates His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi as the legitimate Ruler of Sharjah.
1989 Three hundred crew-members of a Soviet cruise liner that struck an iceberg in the Arctic Circle.
1990 Asteroid Eureka is discovered by David H Levy and Henry Holt.
1997 Turkey’s Islamic-influenced government falls when the president asks Mesut Yilmaz to form a government.
2001 General Pervez Musharraf takes the oath as President of Pakistan.
2002 The US shuts down its embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, after a terrorist threat.
2008 Scientists confirm Phoenix Mars Lander’s discovery of ice on Mars.
2010 Poles vote to elect a successor to President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash at Russia.
2011 Tunisian court sentences ousted president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali and his wife in absentia to 35 years in jail each.
2014 Flash floods in Bulgaria kills at least 11 people after torrential rains lashes the east of the country.
2015 Brazil superstar Neymar is thrown out of the Copa America for indiscipline.
2016 Virginia Raggi becomes first woman mayor of Rome in 2,500 years.
