A republic located in central Europe, Czechoslovakia was founded on 28 October 1918 as one of the successor states of the Habsburg Empire. It included the Czech lands (Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia), Slovakia, and Subcarpathian Rus’. Following the signing of the Munich Agreement on 29 September 1938, Nazi Germany annexed the borderlands of Bohemia and Moravia (Sudetenland), which were populated mostly by Germans. The rest of the republic (minus regions annexed by Poland and Hungary) was called the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic. After the Nazi occupation of 15 March 1939, the Czech lands were transformed into Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia, with Slovakia becoming a semi-independent state. Following World War II, the Czechoslovak Republic was reestablished without Subcarpathian Rus’, which was incorporated into the Soviet Union. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia was divided into two independent states called the Czech and Slovak Republics.
