Hungary

The Hungarian Parliament Building is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings, a notable landmark... of Hungary and a popular tourist destination of Budapest. It lies in Lajos Kossuth Square, on the bank of the Danube, in Budapest. It is currently the largest building in Hungary. Budapest was united from three cities in 1873 and seven years later the diet resolved to establish a new, representative Parliament Building, expressing the sovereignty of the nation. An international competition was held, and Imre Steindl emerged as the victor; the plans of two other competitors were later also realized in the form of the Ethnographical Museum and the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, both of which face the Parliament Building. Construction from the winning plan was started in 1885 and the building was inaugurated on the 1000th anniversary of the country in 1896, and completed in 1904.
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The Halászbástya or Fisherman's Bastion is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the... Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church. It was designed and built between 1895 and 1902 on the plans of Frigyes Schulek. Between 1947–48, the son of Frigyes Schulek, János Schulek, conducted the other restoration project after its near destruction during World War II. From the towers and the terrace a panoramic view exists of Danube, Margaret Island, Pest to the east and the Gellért Hill. Its seven towers represent the seven Magyar tribes that settled in the Carpathian Basin in 896. The Bastion takes its name from the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls in the Middle Ages. It is a viewing terrace, with many stairs and walking paths. A bronze statue of Stephen I of Hungary mounted on a horse, erected in 1906, can be seen between the Bastion and the Matthias Church. The pedestal was made by Alajos Stróbl, based on the plans of Frigyes Schulek, in Neo-Romanesque style, with episodes illustrating the King's life. It was featured as a Pit Stop on the sixth season of The Amazing Race.
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Matthias Church is a church located in Budapest, Hungary, at the heart of Buda's Castle District. According to church tradition, it was originally... built in Romanesque style in 1015. The current building was constructed in the florid late Gothic style in the second half of the 14th century and was extensively restored in the late 19th century. It was the second largest church of medieval Buda and the seventh largest church of medieval Hungarian Kingdom. Officially named as the Church of Our Lady, it has been popularly named after King Matthias, who ordered the transformation of its original southern tower. The church was the scene of several coronations, including that of Charles IV in 1916 . It was also the site for King Matthias's two weddings . During the century and a half of Turkish occupation, the vast majority of its ecclesiastical treasures were shipped to Pressburg and following the capture of Buda in 1541 the church became the city's main mosque.
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The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its... Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. The revolt began as a student demonstration which attracted thousands as it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building. A student delegation entering the radio building in an attempt to broadcast its demands was detained. When the delegation's release was demanded by the demonstrators outside, they were fired upon by the State Security Police from within the building. The news spread quickly and disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital. The revolt spread quickly across Hungary, and the government fell. Thousands organized into militias, battling the State Security Police and Soviet troops. Pro-Soviet communists and ÁVH members were often executed or imprisoned, as former prisoners were released and armed. Impromptu councils wrested municipal control from the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party and demanded political changes.
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World War II, or the Second World War , was a global war that was under way by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved a vast majority of the... world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people serving in military units. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it resulted in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. These deaths make the war the deadliest conflict in human history. Although Japan was already at war with China in 1937, the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth.
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The Battle of Turda lasted from 5 September to 8 October 1944, in the area around Turda, in present-day Romania, as part of the wider Battle of... Romania. Troops from the Hungarian 2nd Army and the German 8th Army fought a defensive action against Romanian and Soviet forces. The battle was one of the largest fought in Transylvania during World War II. Prior to the battle, Soviet units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front occupied the Vulcan pass, as well as the cities of Braşov and Sibiu . The Red Army intended to capture Cluj—the historical capital of Transylvania—without much effort. While continuing to advance toward the Mureş River, which the Hungarian 2nd Armored Division was recently able to cross, they collided with and stopped the Hungarian units; the 2nd Hungarian Army was forced to take a defensive stance on 10 September 1944. The Soviet Stavka, , was a little surprised by the unexpected Hungarian offensive, and decided to strengthen its forces in the area to prevent another. It also launched an attack of their own on Turda, in tandem with the Romanian 4th Army.
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The Battle of Păuliş took place in September 1944 in Arad County, western Romania as part of the wider Battle of Romania of World War II.... It was fought between Hungarian and Romanian troops, after the Romanian royal coup which put Romania on the Allied side. Advancing on the northern bank of the Mureş River, on the direction Sâmbăteni-Miniş, concomitantly with a enveloping maneuver of the righ flank of the Romanian troops, the Hungarian 1st Armored and 6th Reserve Infantry Divisions made contact with the "Păuliş" Detachment west of the village of Păuliş , on 14 September. The "Păuliş" Detachment included three battalions of cadets from the Reserve Infantry NCOs School of Radna, present-day Lipova , Romania. The first assault of the Hungarian troops, carried out with two infantry battalions supported by tanks, was repulsed by the 2nd and 6th Companies of cadets, with heavy losses for the Hungarians. Five more attacks were subsequently carried out against the Romanian defenders, but by nightfall the Romanian units were holding their positions firmly. The Hungarians lost 18 tanks and 3 armored vehicles.
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The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear... Weapons which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. Between 1971 and 1974, a group of 15 nuclear supplier states held a series of informal meetings in Vienna chaired by Professor Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The group's objective was to reach a common understanding on: the definition of "equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material;" and the conditions and procedures that would govern exports of such equipment or material in order to meet the obligations of Article III.2 on the basis of fair commercial competition. The group, which became known as the Zangger Committee, decided that it would be informal and that its decisions would not be legally binding upon its members.
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The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, or the SECI, has been an initiative that, under the auspices of men like Erhard Busek and Richard... Schifter, has been successful in providing stability in an unstable region and has found support in international organizations and countries. As of 2009, the region has found confidence in its new stability and along with the help of the SECI, has created a Regional Co-operation Council , owned and run by the countries in Southeast Europe aimed at strengthening peace, democracy and the economy in the hopes that the newfound stability can be supported by those countries who not so long ago were the perpetuators of volatility. The SECI Regional Center Headquarters is located in Bucharest Romania. The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative was formed in 1996 under the guidance of then, Senior Director for Eastern Europe in the United States National Security Council, Richard Schifter.
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to... stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices, and co-ordinate domestic and international policies of its members. The OECD originated in 1948 as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation , led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. Later, its membership was extended to non-European states. In 1961, it was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a "very high" Human Development Index and are regarded as developed countries. The OECD's headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, France.
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The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programs. The World Bank's official... goal is the reduction of poverty. According to the World Bank's Articles of Agreement all of its decisions must be guided by a commitment to promote foreign investment, international trade and facilitate capital investment. The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that the World Bank comprises only two institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association , whereas the former incorporates these two in addition to three more: International Finance Corporation , Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency , and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes . The World Bank is one of five institutions created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The International Monetary Fund, a related institution, is the second. Delegates from many countries attended the Bretton Woods Conference.
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The University of Debrecen is a university located in Debrecen, Hungary. It is the oldest continuously operating institution of higher education in... Hungary . Higher education began in Debrecen with the Calvinist College of Debrecen, which was founded in 1538. Over centuries of its existence it was one of the key institutions of higher education in Hungary. In the beginning of the 20th century the College was transformed into a university, and has a strong link and cooperation with the present Calvinist College's Debrecen Reformed Theological University. In 1908, the Calvinist Academy of Humanities was created, and in 1912, the Hungarian Royal University was founded. The university incorporated the theology, law, and arts faculties of the College and added a medical school. Teaching began in 1914 in the old Calvinist College buildings. In 1918, the first new medical school building was opened, and the original medical school campus was completed in 1927. In 1921, the university took the name of István Tisza, former prime minister of Hungary. In 1932 the university's main building was completed.
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The University of Pécs is the Hungarian university with the largest number of students and faculties. The first university in Pécs was... established by Louis I of Hungary in 1367, the letter patent issued by pope Urban V, similar to that of the University of Vienna. The university existed for a few decades, then split into two schools, one of jurisprudence and one of theology in the course of the 15th century. The university was completely discontinued during Ottoman occupation, then restarted in 1785 by Joseph II moving the Royal Academy from Győr to Pecs. In 1802 the Royal Academy was moved back to Győr by the order of Francis I, and higher education was discontinued in Pecs until 1833, when the bishop of Pecs in conjunction with the city senate founded the Pecs Academy, comprising a legal and a philosophical faculty. The modern University of Pécs was founded in 1912, and was originally located in Pozsony . Since after the WWI Pozsony too came to be cut off from Hungary, in 1921 the university moved to Pécs, where it remained to this day.
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The University of Pannonia is a university located in Veszprém, Hungary. It was founded in 1949 and is organized in five faculties: Arts and... Humanities, Engineering, Agriculture, Economics and Information Technology. The university was founded in 1949. In the beginning it worked as a regional faculty of the Technical University of Budapest. In 1951, it became independent under the name of Veszprém University of Chemical Engineering. From 1991, the university has been called the University of Veszprém. The university first offered courses in four areas of Chemical Technology: Oil and Coal Technology, Electrochemical Industry, Inorganic Chemical Technology, Silicate Chemistry. From the mid-1960s two courses — Nuclear Chemistry and Technology, Process Control and System Engineering — became part of the Chemical Engineering education in Veszprém. The changing and increasing requirements set for the graduates persuaded the university to continually reform and restructure its education activity.
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Ágnes Szávay is a professional tennis player from Hungary. She was the WTA Newcomer of the Year in 2007. She achieved her career high... ranking of World No. 13 on April 14, 2008. Szávay was born in Kiskunhalas, Hungary and grew up in Soltvadkert, Hungary. She started to play tennis at the age of six, with her parents acting as her first coaches and managers. Her previous coaches were Zoltán Újhidy, Levente Barátosi, Miklós Hornok, József Bocskay, Zoltán Kuharszky, Karl-Heinz Wetter and Gábor Köves. She has a younger sister, Blanka, who is five years younger than her and currently plays on the junior circuit. In 2006 she made it to the final of the Ashland Challenger tournament, but lost there to Aleksandra Wozniak 6–1, 7–6 . Szávay won her first career WTA-level tournament in singles in Palermo, Italy in July. The win caused her ranking to rise to World No. 37, which was the first time she had been included in the top 40. She also won one doubles tournament, the Tier III Budapest Grand Prix, with Vladimíra Uhlířová.
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Sári Gábor , known as Zsa Zsa Gabor, is a Hungarian-born American actress, who acted in supporting roles in movies, on Broadway, and... occasionally on television. Gabor was also a socialite. She began her stage career in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 15, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that "exuded charm and grace". Her first movie role was as supporting actress in Lovely to Look At. She later acted in We're Not Married! and played one of her few leading roles in Moulin Rouge , directed by John Huston, who described her as a "creditable" actress. Besides her film and television appearances, she is best known for having nine husbands, including hotel magnate Conrad Hilton and actor George Sanders. She once stated, "Men have always liked me and I have always liked men. But I like a mannish man, a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman—not just a man with muscles." Born in Budapest , her birth name was Sári Gábor.
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Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the... creator of the Kodály Method. Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child. In 1905 he visited remote villages to collect songs, recording them on phonograph cylinders. In 1906 he wrote the thesis on Hungarian folk song . Around this time Kodály met fellow composer Béla Bartók, whom he took under his wing and introduced to some of the methods involved in folk song collecting. The two became lifelong friends and champions of each other's music. All these works show a great originality of form and content, a very interesting blend of highly sophisticated mastery in the Western-European style of music, including classical, late-romantic, impressionistic and modernist tradition and at the other hand profound knowledge and respect for the folk music on Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Albania and other Eastern-European countries.
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Júlia Várady is a German soprano of Hungarian origin born in Nagyvárad, Hungary . At the age of six she began violin lessons at the... music conservatory in Cluj-Napoca and then, aged fourteen, voice training with Emilia Popp. She later studied voice with Arta Florescu in Bucharest. She made her debut, as a mezzo-soprano, with the Cluj Opera in 1962, singing in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte. In 1970 she joined the Frankfurt-am-Main Opera and thereafter sang mostly in Western Europe. In 1973 she moved from Frankfurt to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and later joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; at the Vienna State Opera; at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and at the Salzburg, Munich and Edinburgh festivals. In 1978 she created the role of Cordelia at the premiere of Aribert Reimann's opera Lear with the Bayerische Staatsoper.
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Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch,... bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south. At 238,400 square kilometers , Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people. The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II.
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The Slovak Republic , long form  Slovenská republika is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and... an area of about 49,000 square kilometres . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family. The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire , Principality of Nitra , Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia.
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Serbia /ˈsɜrbiə/, officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast... Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km and has a population of just over 7.1 million, while the capital and largest city is Belgrade. The arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, established several states, eventually forming the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans.
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Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the... Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres , and its highest point is 3,798 metres . The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
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