15 Facts About Bohemia

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic.

Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire.

Until 1948, Bohemia was an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its "lands" .

Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria, and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, and in the east by Moravia .

Bohemia took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests.

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Bohemia's death marked the end of the old "Slavonic" confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia.

Bohemia would remain a largely autonomous state under the Holy Roman Empire for several decades.

The jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire was definitively reasserted when Jaromir of Bohemia was granted fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia by Emperor King Henry II of the Holy Roman Empire, with the promise that he hold it as a vassal once he reoccupied Prague with a German army in 1004, ending the rule of Boleslaw I of Poland.

Bohemia founded Charles University in Prague, Central Europe's first university, two years later.

Bohemia is remembered for his attempt to set up a pan-European "Christian League", which would form all the states of Europe into a community based on religion.

Bohemia enjoyed religious freedom between 1436 and 1620, and became one of the most liberal countries of the Christian world during that period.

Frederick's wife, the popular Elizabeth Stuart and subsequently, Elizabeth of Bohemia, known as the Winter Queen or Queen of Hearts, was the daughter of King James VI of Scotland.

That ended the pro-reformation movement in Bohemia and ended the role of Prague as ruling city of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1949, Bohemia ceased to be an administrative unit of Czechoslovakia, as the country was divided into administrative regions that did not follow the historical borders.

In 1989, Agnes of Bohemia became the first saint from a Central European country to be canonized by Pope John Paul II before the "Velvet Revolution" later that year.