Curated category
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.
- 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…
- West BerlinWest Berlin was an island in the middle of communist East Germany, and for over four decades it defied every logic of geography.
- 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…
- French First RepublicMobs of Parisians broke into the city's prisons during the first week of September 1792. They killed over half of the prisoners, including nobles and…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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.
- 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…
- Maritime republicsIn the year 849, a coalition of Italian coastal cities sailed out to the port of Ostia and shattered a Saracen invasion fleet.
- 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.
- Czechoslovak Socialist RepublicThe Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was born on the 25th of February 1948, when President Edvard Beneš, fearing civil war and Soviet intervention…
- Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic existed for just 19 months, yet its name carries a weight that still shapes Italian politics today.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Russian RepublicPrince Georgy Lvov took the helm of a new Provisional Government on the 2nd of March 1917. This date marked the moment Emperor Nicholas II abdicated his…
- 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…
- 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…
- Free City of DanzigOn the 15th of November 1920, the Free City of Danzig officially came into existence under the protection of the League of Nations.