Slovak Americans

After some travel in Europe, he eventually reached South American shores, via the West Indies, on a Dutch trading ship.

Another Slovak fought in the American Revolution; Major Jan Polerecky, who trained at the French Royal Military Academy of St. Cyr, came to America from France to fight with George Washington's army in the War for Independence.

This first volunteer unit from Chicago, which included many Slovaks, fought in the Civil War and was eventually incorporated into the 24th Illinois Infantry Regiment.

Slovak immigrant, Samuel Figuli, fought in the Civil War, owned a plantation in Virginia, and later joined an exploratory expedition to the North Pole.

Large scale Slovak immigration to the United States began in the 1870s with the forced magyarization policies of the Hungarian government.

In 1910, Slovak and other ethnic leaders in the United States successfully petitioned federal authorities to classify a person by their language, rather than country of origin.

The event encouraged a British journalist and academic, Robert W. Seton-Watson, to denounce Budapest's policies towards the nationalities in his book "Racial Problems in Hungary," which he published under the pseudonym Scotus Viator in 1908.

Communists took control of Czechoslovakia's government in 1948, leading to a mass migration of Slovak intelligentsia and post-war political figures.

Termed the Velvet Divorce, the period marked Western influences[6] and a new autonomy for the Slovak Republic with separate national standards and ratings for education, the economy, and other government functions.

The historian Stanislav Kinselbaum, born in Prague and Western-educated, noted that first free postcommunist elections in Slovakia were held in June 1990.