Balassagyarmat is the capital city of Palóc country as the prominent author of Hungarian epic, Kálmán Mikszáth said.

[2] Since 1998, the town's coat of arms has borne the Latin inscription "Civitas Fortissima" (the bravest city) because it was claimed that in January 1919 Czechoslovak troops crossed the demarcation line delineated in December 1918 in preparation for the Treaty of Trianon, illegally occupying towns south of the line, including Balassagyarmat.

When the Magyar tribes entered the Carpathian Basin, Grand Chief Árpád sent his two generals, Zoárd and Kadosa to take the northern parts of Hungary.

After the Mongols withdrew the following year, stone castles were built all over the country at the urging of King Bela IV.

It was how Detre, the ancestor of the Balassa family, built the first fortified stone tower in Gyarmat along the Ipoly River.

Later Péter (aka Furró), one of the members of the Balassa family was accused of infidelity, so King László IV took the castle from him.

The northern part of the fortification was defended by the Ipoly River, but the other defences were hastily fortified, and the city was surrounded by a wooden palisade.

They could easily take the small castle as the Turk garrison set it on fire and fled when the Christian army was coming.

Colonel Philip Morgentaller was appointed as captain of the castle, and immediately began repairing and restoring the damaged walls.

Let us also commemorate Balassi Bálint, the great Renaissance poet and warrior who lost his life at the siege of Esztergom in 1594.

Despite these fortifications, the castle was occupied by Prince Bethlen Gábor's army in 1619, but according to the peace of Nikolsburg in 1622, it was given back to the Habsburg king.

Balassagyarmat was besieged by the Turks in 1648 with an army of 4,000 men, but the cavalry of Count Ádám Forgách, the Chief Captain of Érsekújvár (Nové Zámky) castle came to the aid of the defenders, and he chased the attackers away.

The Ottoman Empire seemed to be declining but an iron-handed Grand Vizier called Köprülü Ahmed wanted to prevent this process.

He launched a huge army against Hungary in 1663, his troops occupied, burned, and destroyed the smaller border castles that lay in their path.

[5] During World War II, May 9, 1944, Germans kept 3,000 Jews from the town and the surrounding villages imprisoned in a ghetto.

Csenge Hatala, a young writer, started collecting documents and conducting interviews with the victims forty years later.

[7] The town lies on the left bank of the Ipoly river, which marks the state border with Slovakia.