Czechoslovakia

State · 1919–1991 CE · at its largest around 1922 CE

A Central European state created from Austro-Hungarian lands in 1918, led at first by Tomas Masaryk. It was dismembered by Nazi Germany, restored after 1945, ruled by Communists from 1948 and peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

On its lands while it lasted

Sigmund Freud (1856 CE – 1939 CE): Austrian neurologist in Vienna who founded psychoanalysis. His The Interpretation of Dreams appeared in 1899. He fled the Nazis to London in 1938.
Franz Kafka (1883 CE – 1924 CE): German-speaking Jewish writer from Prague whose unsettling works, such as The Metamorphosis and The Trial, influenced modern literature.
Interpol (1923 CE): Founded in Vienna in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, the organisation helps police forces of its member countries cooperate across borders. Its headquarters has been in Lyon since 1989.
Auschwitz concentration camp (1940–1945 CE): The largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp, built in occupied Poland. About 1.1 million people, the great majority of them Jews, were murdered there before its liberation in January 1945.
Prague Spring (1968 CE): Alexander Dubcek's liberalising reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were ended in August by an invasion of Warsaw Pact troops.
Velvet Revolution (1989 CE): Peaceful mass protests in Prague in November–December 1989 ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia; dissident playwright Václav Havel became president.