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The Hun­gar­i­ans led by Árpád set­tled the Carpathian Basin in 895, es­tab­lished Prin­ci­pal­ity of Hun­gary (896–1000). The Hun­gar­i­ans led sev­eral suc­cess­ful in­cur­sions to West­ern Eu­rope, until they were stopped by Otto I, Holy Roman Em­peror in Bat­tle of Lech­feld.

High Middle Ages

The prin­ci­pal­ity was suc­ceeded by the Chris­t­ian King­dom of Hun­gary with the coro­na­tion of St Stephen I (son of prin­ci­pal Géza. Orig­i­nally called Vajk until bap­tized) at Es­zter­gom on Christ­mas Day 1000. The first kings of the king­dom were from the Árpád dy­nasty. He fought against Koppány and in 998, with Bavar­ian help, de­feated him near Veszprém. The Catholic Church re­ceived pow­er­ful sup­port from Stephen I, who with Chris­t­ian Hun­gar­i­ans and Ger­man knights wanted...

Late Middle Ages

The Árpád dy­nasty died out in 1301 with the death of An­drew III. Sub­se­quently, Hun­gary was ruled by the Angevins until the end of the 14th cen­tury, and then by sev­eral non-dy­nas­tic rulers - no­tably Sigis­mund, Holy Roman Em­peror and Matthias Corv­i­nus- until the early 16th cen­tury.

The divided kingdom

Due to a se­ri­ous de­feat by the Ot­tomans (Bat­tle of Mohács) the cen­tral au­thor­ity col­lapsed. The ma­jor­ity of Hun­gary's rul­ing elite elected John Zápolya (10 No­vem­ber 1526). A small mi­nor­ity of aris­to­crats sided with Fer­di­nand I, Holy Roman Em­peror, who was Arch­duke of Aus­tria, and was re­lated to Louis by mar­riage. Due to pre­vi­ous agree­ments that the Hab­s­burgs would take the Hun­gar­ian throne if Louis died with­out heirs, Fer­di­nand was elected king by a rump di...

The Kuruc age

Rákóczi's War for In­de­pen­dence (1703–1711) was the first sig­nif­i­cant free­dom fight in Hun­gary against ab­so­lutist Hab­s­burg rule. It was fought by a group of no­ble­men, wealthy and high-rank­ing pro­gres­sives who wanted to put an end to the in­equal­ity of power re­la­tions, led by Fran­cis II Rákóczi (II. Rákóczi Fer­enc in Hun­gar­ian). Its main aims were to pro­tect the rights of the dif­fer­ent so­cial or­ders, and to en­sure the eco­nomic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of the cou...

Age of Enlightenment

In 1711, Aus­trian Em­peror Charles VI be­came the next ruler of Hun­gary. Through­out the 18th cen­tury, the King­dom of Hun­gary had its own diet (par­lia­ment) and con­sti­tu­tion, but the mem­bers of the Gov­er­nor's Coun­cil (Hely­tartótanács, the of­fice of the pala­tine) were ap­pointed by the Hab­s­burg monarch, and the su­pe­rior eco­nomic in­sti­tu­tion, the Hun­gar­ian Cham­ber, was di­rectly sub­or­di­nated to the Court Cham­ber in Vi­enna. The Hun­gar­ian lan­guage re­form starte...

Fol­low­ing the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­ian Com­pro­mise of 1867, the Hab­s­burg Em­pire be­came the "dual monar­chy" of Aus­tria-Hun­gary. The Aus­tro-Hun­gar­ian econ­omy changed dra­mat­i­cally dur­ing the ex­is­tence of the Dual Monar­chy. Tech­no­log­i­cal change ac­cel­er­ated in­dus­tri­al­iza­tion and ur­ban­iza­tion. The cap­i­tal­ist way of pro­duc­tion spread through­out the Em­pire dur­ing its fifty-year ex­is­tence and ob­so­lete me­dieval in­sti­tu­tions con­tin­ued to dis­ap­pear. By the early 20th cen­tury, most of the Em­pire began to ex­pe­ri­ence rapid eco­nomic growth. The GNP per capitagrew roughly 1.45% per year from 1870 to 1913. That level of growth com­pared very fa­vor­ably to that of other Eu­ro­pean na­tions such as Britain (1.00%), France (1.06%), and Ger­many (1.51%). The lands of the Hun­gar­ian Crown (com­pris­ing the King­dom of Hun­gary proper, into which Tran­syl­va­nia was fully in­cor­po­rated, and the King­dom of Croa­tia–Slavo­nia, which main­tained a...

Two short-lived republics

The Hun­gar­ian So­viet Republic or Hun­gar­ian Re­pub­lic of Councils (Hun­gar­ian: Ma­gyar­or­szá­gi Tanácsköztársaság or Mag­yarországi Szo­cial­ista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság) was a short-lived in­de­pen­dent com­mu­nist state es­tab­lished in Hun­gary. It lasted only from 21 March until 1 Au­gust 1919. The state was led by Béla Kun and was not rec­og­nized by France, the UK or the US. It was the sec­ond so­cial­ist state in the world to be formed after the Oc­to­ber Rev­o­lu­tion in...

Treaty of Trianon

The new bor­ders set in 1920 by the Treaty of Tri­anon ceded 72% of the ter­ri­tory of the King­dom of Hun­gary to the neigh­bour­ing states. The main ben­e­fi­cia­ries were Ro­ma­nia, the newly formed states of Czecho­slo­va­kia, and the King­dom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but also Aus­tria, Poland and Italy gained smaller ter­ri­to­ries. The areas that were al­lo­cated to neigh­bour­ing coun­tries in total (and each of them sep­a­rately) pos­sessed a ma­jor­ity of non-Hun­gar­ian pop­u­...

Interwar period

After the pull­out of oc­cu­pa­tion forces of Ro­ma­nia in 1920 the coun­try went into civil con­flict, with Hun­gar­ian anti-com­mu­nists and monar­chists purg­ing the na­tion of com­mu­nists, left­ists and oth­ers by whom they felt threat­ened.Later in 1920, a coali­tion of right-wing po­lit­i­cal forces united, and re­in­stated Hun­gary's sta­tus as a con­sti­tu­tional monar­chy. Se­lec­tion of the new King was de­layed due to civil in­fight­ing, and a re­gent was ap­pointed to rep­re­sent...

During World War II 1941–1945

After being granted part of south­ern Czecho­slo­va­kia and Sub­carpathia by the Ger­mans and Ital­ians in the First Vi­enna Award of 1938, and then north­ern Tran­syl­va­nia in the Sec­ond Vi­enna Award of 1940, Hun­gary par­tic­i­pated in their first mil­i­tary ma­neu­vers on the side of the Axis pow­ers in 1941. Thus, the Hun­gar­ian army was part of the in­va­sion of Yu­goslavia, gain­ing some more ter­ri­tory and join­ing the Axis pow­ers in the process. On 22 June 1941, Ger­many in­vade...

Transitioning into a republic

Fol­low­ing its oc­cu­pa­tion of Hun­gary in 1944, the So­viet Union im­posed harsh con­di­tions al­low­ing it to seize im­por­tant ma­te­r­ial as­sets and con­trol in­ter­nal affairs. After the Red Army set up po­lice or­gans to per­se­cute class en­e­mies, the So­vi­ets as­sumed that the im­pov­er­ished Hun­gar­ian pop­u­lace would sup­port the com­mu­nists in the com­ing elections. The com­mu­nists fared poorly, re­ceiv­ing only 17% of the vote, re­sult­ing in a coali­tion gov­ern­ment und...