My husband and I spent the day with his sister. We met her near the Austrian border where she was staying with her beau (he's at a business conference there). We drove first to lunch, then on to an archeological site, then to a lovely town with a museum dedicated to a famous Czech politician, named Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. I learned that it is believed that that Czech politician was actually Emperor Franz Joseph's (of the Austro-Hungarian empire) illegitimate son. Apparently his mother got pregnant from a night with the Emperor. He was raised by his mother's husband and her. They were relatively poor, but the emperor funded this son's education, without him knowing. The middle name "Garrigue" was actually his wife's family name. The wife was an American woman named Charlotte. He loved her so much that he took her family name as his middle name. Nice and modern gesture. Right? My husband didn't take my family name as his middle name. Humph! In any case, Charlotte, a feminist of her time, did a lot for women's rights initiatives in then Czechoslovakia.

Masaryk was the very first president of Czechoslovakia. Before that, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Coincidentally, Masaryk broke Czechoslovakia away from the empire, which would have angered his biological father, greatly, if he had still been alive then. It remained as Czechoslovakia until the peaceful split of Czech and Slovak lands. Now it is just Czech Republic. Slovak Republic is a separate country.