| − | |Communist-controlled nation until demonstrations forced its Communist Party leader to resign in November 1989; in 1993, the Czechoslovakia split along ethnic lines to form Slovakia and the Czech Republic | + | |Formed in 1919 out of the old Austria-Hungarian empire, ostensibly to promote [[Woodrow Wilson's|Woodrow Wilson]] "self determination" principle was a state consisting largely of an amalgamation of Czech and Slovak peoples, although there were many other minorities included, such as the Sudeten Germans and the Magyars, which resulted in a largely unstable state - a fact Hitler took advantage of in the Munich betrayal in 1938. After WWII it was a communist-controlled nation until demonstrations forced its Communist Party leader to resign in November 1989; in 1993, the Czechoslovakia split along ethnic lines to form Slovakia and the Czech Republic |