Curated playlist
Former republics
- South VietnamSouth Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, existed for exactly twenty years, from 1955 to 1975. At its peak, it had diplomatic ties with 95 countries. At the time of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, it fielded what was counted as the…
- Free FranceFree France was born on the 18th of June 1940 from a single BBC radio broadcast. General Charles de Gaulle, a recently promoted brigadier general who had held a junior cabinet post for less than two weeks, spoke to his countrymen from…
- West BerlinWest Berlin was an island in the middle of communist East Germany, and for over four decades it defied every logic of geography. About two million people lived inside its borders, making it the largest city in Germany during the Cold War…
- State of KatangaThe State of Katanga declared its independence from Congo-Léopoldville on the evening of the 11th of July 1960, when Moïse Tshombe accused the new central government of communist leanings and dictatorial rule. Tshombe led CONAKAT, the…
- French First RepublicThe French First Republic was born on the 21st of September 1792, when France's National Convention voted unanimously to abolish the constitutional monarchy. It proved unable to settle on a single form of government in the twelve years…
- Commonwealth of the PhilippinesOn the 15th of November 1935, a crowd of some 300,000 people gathered on the steps of the Legislative Building in Manila to witness something new in the world: a colonial territory setting a countdown clock on its own existence. The…
- Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic began with an act of violence and ended with one. In 509 BC, according to Roman tradition, a noblewoman named Lucretia was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king. The outrage that followed swept the monarchy from…
- Second Federal Republic of MexicoThe Second Federal Republic of Mexico was born at midnight, when congress opened its sessions on the 5th of December 1846, in a country already at war with the United States. Half the national territory would soon be lost. A civil war…
- Helvetic RepublicThe Helvetic Republic existed for barely five years. It left Switzerland 12 million francs in debt, against a treasury that had started with only 6 million. On the 12th of April 1798, 121 cantonal deputies proclaimed it "One and…
- Italian Republic (Napoleonic)The Italian Republic existed for just three years, from 1802 to 1805, a northern Italian state with Napoleon Bonaparte as its president and Milan as its capital. It raises a question that sounds almost paradoxical: what does a republic…
- Maritime republicsIn the year 849, a coalition of Italian coastal cities sailed out to the port of Ostia and shattered a Saracen invasion fleet. The cities were Amalfi, Gaeta, Naples, and Sorrento. Some historians call that battle the first real military…
- StrasbourgStrasbourg sits on the eastern edge of France, pressed against the Rhine, and it has spent two thousand years being fought over, traded away, and reclaimed. In 1988, the city celebrated the two thousandth anniversary of its founding as the…
- Czechoslovak Socialist RepublicThe Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was born on the 25th of February 1948, when President Edvard Beneš, fearing civil war and Soviet intervention, surrendered power to a Communist-dominated government. What followed was four decades of…
- Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic existed for just 19 months, yet its name carries a weight that still shapes Italian politics today. Proclaimed on the 23rd of September 1943 in the chaos following Italy's armistice with the Allies, it was a…
- CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia appeared on the map of Europe in October 1918, carved from the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and vanished just as deliberately on the 31st of December 1992, dissolved by its own parliament without a single shot…
- Republic of VeniceThe Republic of Venice endured for over 1,100 years, longer than any other major European state of its era. At its peak, between the 13th and 16th centuries, it controlled Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese, scattered Greek islands, and ports…
- Republic of FlorenceThe Republic of Florence was born from a single death. In 1115, when Matilda of Tuscany died and left her vast territories without an obvious heir, the people of Florence seized the moment. Rather than submit to her successor, Rabodo, they…
- Russian RepublicThe Russian Republic was proclaimed on the 1st of September 1917, when Alexander Kerensky and Alexander Zarudny signed a founding decree. Kerensky held the title of Minister-Chairman; Zarudny served as Minister of Justice. The state they…
- Novgorod RepublicThe Novgorod Republic called itself Lord Novgorod the Great, and for three centuries it lived up to that name. Stretching from the Gulf of Finland to the Ural Mountains, it was the largest state in Russia before Moscow swallowed it whole.…
- Polish–Lithuanian CommonwealthThe Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was, for a stretch of two centuries, the largest country in Europe by territory. On the 1st of July 1569, the Union of Lublin brought together the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a…
- Free City of DanzigSee structured fields below.