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Did you know ...

• in 1990, Czech and Slovak politicians "fought" the Hyphen War, a political battle over whether "Czechoslovakia" should be spelled with a hyphen?
• the fungus Albatrellus subrubescens was first collected from Florida and Czechoslovakia?
• the 773rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (tank pictured) was the first American unit to enter Czechoslovakia in 1945?
• in 1949 the Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Yugoslav and Czechoslovak socialist parties founded the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe as a common centre for work in exile?
• during the Soviet era the only country that fashion designer Slava Zaitsev (pictured) was able to travel to was Czechoslovakia, and it was not until 1986 that he was able to travel to a capitalist country?
• after Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938, the parliamentarians of the German Christian Social People's Party in Czechoslovakia joined the Sudeten German Party?
• after World War II, the Czech urban legend of Pérák changed from a shadowy surprise attacker to a heroic figure of resistance against the Nazi occupation of Prague?
• as Charles I of Austria attempted to regain the Hungarian throne in 1921, Czechoslovakia nearly entered Budapest in order to prevent a Habsburg restoration?
• the Central Commission of German Trade Unions organized 75 percent of unionized German workers in Czechoslovakia in 1921?
• the Slovak National Theatre hosted its first performance, the Czech opera Hubička by Bedřich Smetana, at its opening on March 1, 1920?
• the first film to take advantage of the relaxation of communism in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s was The Sun in a Net?
• the first foreigner decorated in World War Two with the highest Soviet medal, Hero of the Soviet Union, was a Czechoslovak soldier, Otakar Jaroš after the Battle of Sokolovo in 1943?
• the region of Cieszyn Silesia was in 1920 divided by the Spa Conference between Poland and Czechoslovakia and remains divided to date?
• the first sobering-up station in the world was invented by Jaroslav Skála in 1951 in Czechoslovakia?
• the first Czechoslovakian flag was handed over by the French President in the small Vosges town of Darney?
• the Socialist League of the New East, founded by émigré Socialist-Revolutionaries in Czechoslovakia in 1927, called for splitting up the Soviet Union into separate national states?
• the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden at the Bohemian Citizens' Benevolent Society has a lime tree that was planted by former Czechoslovakia president Václav Havel?
• a pioneer of the pre-war Czechoslovak swing music Jiří Traxler lives in Canada?
• a 1930 proposal in the Czechoslovak parliament for greater autonomy for Transcarpathia, presented by the Autonomous Agrarian Union, gained support from the German National Socialists?
• Polish writer Gustaw Przeczek was a member of the Cultural Committee of the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia in the 1950s?
• British MP Will Owen was nicknamed "greedy bastard" by the Czechoslovak intelligence agency to whom he sold secrets?
• Charter 08, a declaration signed by hundreds of Chinese intellectuals, was modeled on Czechoslovakian Charter 77?
• Jaromir Jagr became the first Czechoslovakian to be drafted in the NHL without defecting when he was selected in the first round by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990?
• Czech jazz double-bassist Luděk Hulan co-founded Studio 5, one of the most important modern jazz ensembles in Czechoslovakia?
• Czech film and stage director Evald Schorm was a notable exponent of the New Wave in Czechoslovak cinema?
• Czechoslovak General Heliodor Píka was accused of espionage and high treason on the basis of an "appalling" and "unimaginably inefficient bit of forgery"?
• Clemente Micara was the Vatican’s first envoy to Czechoslovakia?
• Emanuel Chobot, chairman of the Polish Socialist Workers Party in interbellum Czechoslovakia, was active in the cooperative movement?
• Stanislav Konopásek lost five years of his ice hockey-playing career when he was imprisoned for allegedly trying to defect from Czechoslovakia in 1950?
• Czech politician Petr Zenkl, who survived two Nazi concentration camps, was forced to escape to the West after communists took power in Czechoslovakia by coup d'état in 1948?
• J.M. Legard's 2006 novel Giraffe is based on the real-life mass killing of giraffes at the zoo in the Czechoslovakian town of Dvůr Králové nad Labem on the night of 30 April 1975?
• Odd Nansen, son of the famed scientist and explorer Fridtjof Nansen, founded Nansenhjelpen to help Jewish refugees escape the German invasion of Czechoslovakia to Norway, then survived Sachsenhausen himself?
• Jiri Dudacek, the first Czechoslovak ice hockey player to be selected in the first round of the National Hockey League draft, never left Czechoslovakia due to the protests of the country's sports minister?
• František Kriegel was the only political leader of Czechoslovakia deported to Moscow in 1968 who refused to sign the Moscow Protocol dictated by Brezhnev?
• Ingvald Smith-Kielland left his ambassadorship in the Czechoslovak Republic after the Prague Spring?
• Czech children's writer Ondřej Sekora was also one of the first propagators of rugby in Czechoslovakia?