The Romanian revolution of 1989 was the result of the country’s long tradition of simultaneously resisting and embracing outside forces and influences. It’s a process that stretches back to the second century AD when the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered the area and plundered its gold. Goths, Hun, Bulgars, Magyars, and Ottomans followed. Each group was fiercely resisted before being driven out by heroic figures like Vlad The Impaler. But each invasion force left its legacy producing a nation that is more heterogeneous than its neighbors. Like the surrounding Slavic countries Romania embraced Orthodox Christianity. But unlike its Yugoslavian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian neighbors it used the Latin alphabet. Indeed, Romanian is the language most closely tied to modern Italian, while the majority of the Balkan nations speak in Slavic, Turkic, or Greek.




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BBC John Simpson BBC1 News


English: Address from the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin Wall). Full text at Wikisource


Date12 June 1987SourceUniversity of Virginia Miller Center for Public Affairs


President Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. Transcript available.[1]


Date26 June 1963SourceKennedy Presidential Library[2]AuthorJohn F. Kennedy

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