Romania’s History Is INCREDIBLE! 🇷🇴😮

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]The history of Romania explained in 10 minutes. Bro, this is going to be awesome. It's from this channel which I've never checked out before.

[00:00:11]AP Matthews. Going to subscribe. I love history, so yeah, come on. These channels are my bread my bread for breakfast. I don't know, that sounds a bit weird. I don't know how to say it in English. That's not going to be that good.

[00:00:30]Cool animation.

[00:00:41]Romania, a nation of 20 million people, [music] is located on the western shore of the Black Sea coast, north of the Danube River, and is dominated by the vast Carpathian mountain range. Romanians speak a Latin-based language related to modern-day Spanish, Italian, [music] Portuguese, and French. This area was inhabited by many prehistoric [music] cultures, which evolved and thrived there for millennia. The controversial Tartaria tablets, discovered on the Transylvanian Plateau, are believed by some scholars to be the earliest form of writing yet uncovered. Others believe in the talismans to merely be meaningful symbols, later derivations of Mesopotamian scripts, or inauthentic.

[00:01:22]During the Bronze to early Iron Age, it is widely hypothesized that these indigenous cultures merged with Indo-European speaking newcomers, who into the closely related Getae, Dacians, and Thracians, who were renowned throughout the Greek world for their fighting prowess, and were highly prized as mercenaries. Although the Getae and the Dacians share the same language and had similar religious customs compared to those of the Thracians to the south, they were not united, being split up into dozens of rival tribes. This changed after incursions from the Scythians and Celtic tribes, who seem to have likely dominated the Carpathian region for a short while before being driven out. Larger and larger coalitions of tribes formed until Burebista united them all into a single powerful kingdom which conquered the Greek colonies along the Black Sea coast. During the Roman Civil War, Burebista allied with Pompey Magnus against the victorious Julius Caesar who planned a campaign against this large threatening state on its northern border. [music] This war would never come to pass as Caesar and then Burebista both fell prey to the assassin's dagger in the same year. As with the Roman senators, the Dacian aristocracy feared their traditional privileges were threatened by a powerful autocrat consolidating too much power.

[00:02:39]For several generations, Dacia would fragment into four and then five different kingdoms based on shifting tribal alliances. Dacia would once again become a threat to Rome when united under Decebalus during the particularly inept reign of the emperor Domitian. The Dacians successfully invaded the Roman province of Moesia. During the ensuing war, the Romans beat back the Dacians across the Danube only to suffer a disastrous defeat while pursuing them and agreed to a humiliating treaty where Rome paid Dacia 8 million sesterces every year. In return, Dacia accepted the status of being a Roman client kingdom. After a few years of respite, the Roman emperor Trajan would wage two wars against Decebalus.

[00:03:21]During these wars, the Dacians often used shock troops armed with two-handed swords that were so effective at piercing Roman helmets that they were modified with a pair of crossbars over the dome of the helmet to mitigate the damage from this weapon. However, the full might of the Roman Empire combined with a competent emperor focused on Dacia was too much. Decebalus took his own life while being pursued rather than being captured and paraded through the streets of Rome ending the decades-long Dacian threat. Tens of thousands of Dacians were enslaved and taken to other parts of the empire while the new Roman province was heavily colonized.

[00:03:58]Like Colorado.

[00:04:28]You know what I think we should do in the future definitely a video on why Romania decided to use a a language a romance language you know throughout their history because geographically it doesn't really make that much sense right?

[00:04:47]I always wondered that. I'm sure there's going to be some videos explaining that.

[00:04:51]I apologize for my ignorance of course.

[00:04:54]You can just tell me the comment section but yeah, we can check out another video will be even more fun.

[00:05:36]Wow.

[00:05:45]>> of the step. Initially allied with the Eastern Romans, they then terrorized the empire, taking over 200,000 captives.

[00:05:52]They were allied with migrating tribes of Slavs and Bulgars, who intermingled with and gradually replaced the Avars in a more established state. For hundreds of years, the First Bulgarian Empire came to dominate the entire region. The Bulgars were a long-time enemy and occasional ally of the Byzantine Eastern Romans. Beginning in the late 9th century, the semi-nomadic Magyars conquered the Carpathian Basin and Transylvanian Plateau. The Bulgarian Empire collapsed soon afterwards due to attacks from both the Kievan Rus and then the Byzantine Roman Empire. During this time, the Latin-speaking Vlachs, as the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans referred to them as, gained greater autonomy within and on the fringes of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the mid-13th century, the Mongol Empire devastated the kingdoms and principalities of Eastern Europe. After the Mongols withdrew, three Latin-speaking states formed: Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Transylvania was a semi-independent vassal of the Kingdom of Hungary. Also, the name Romania is fairly recent and they still haven't mentioned it and we are already around the 14th century. Wow.

[00:07:02]As was Moldavia, although it maintained a much higher degree of autonomy given its more remote location. In 1330, Wallachia defeated a much larger Hungarian army, establishing itself as a fully independent state. This independence would last for less than 100 years. Wallachia allied with Hungary against an even greater foe, the Ottoman Turks. And after repeated campaigns, they became an Ottoman vassal in 1417, paying a large yearly tribute in exchange for retaining independent rule.

[00:07:32]During the turbulent time that followed in Wallachia, they fought against themselves as often as they rebelled against the Turks, which was often, usually triggered by failure to pay the yearly tribute, most notably under Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula, he became renowned throughout Europe, not only for the devastating defeats he dealt the Ottoman Empire, but also for his legendary cruelty, which hundreds of years later would inspire the fictional character Dracula. During the long reign of Vlad's contemporary, Stephen the Great of Moldavia, >> that state reached the height of its power, influence, and independence. One of the greatest military commanders of his day, he won 48 of 50 battles. The flag of Moldavia was so sick, by the way. Look at that. That is actually super cool. and defeated larger armies of Polish, Ottoman, and Hungarians.

[00:08:24]However, after his death, Moldavia, as well as Wallachia, Transylvania, and Hungary fell under increased Ottoman influence and control. However, the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and these client states was extremely complex and frequently changed. Often near complete autonomy was granted in exchange for tribute payments of gold and men to fill the ranks of the Ottoman army. During the reign of Michael the Brave, a large, unified, fully independent native state was established on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains for the first time since Decebalus had ruled Dacia. This state was short-lived as Michael the Brave was assassinated and the Ottomans gained control again a few years later. Hungary regained its lost territory and Transylvania once again became a Hungarian vassal state. The Russian and Ottoman Empires fought many wars often involving this region. Wow, look how many wars. That's crazy.

[00:09:19]The early 19th century saw a brief period of Russian control of Wallachia and Moldavia and a series of uprisings and rebellions against the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman rule as nationalist sentiment continually grew with the goal of uniting all Romanian-speaking people. Wallachia and Moldavia unified and obtained their liberty from the Ottoman Empire after the Romanian War of Independence with Russian support, establishing the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. With the outbreak of World War >> That's funny you recently >> Romania declared neutrality as it was squeezed between three great powers.

[00:09:52]Romania joined the war two years later in 1916. By the war's end, >> Romania's day >> Romania had suffered over 500,000 casualties. They had been motivated by the desire to join with the 3 million Romanians of Transylvania. In the treaties following the war and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this goal was accomplished, creating Greater Romania during the interwar period. During World War II, Romania again had little desire to join the war, including relinquishing large portions of territory until under threat of invasion by the USSR, Romania joined the Allied cause. After the war, the Socialist Republic of Romania was established with the Communist Party forcing the king to abdicate the throne and abolish the monarchy. For 24 years, Nicolae Ceaușescu governed the state, maintaining close ties with the Soviet Union until the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which led to his capture and execution in What is your take on Ceaușescu? I'm really curious. I've I've never met many Romanians in real life too. I mean, I I did but when I was younger, wasn't really that interested before in politics. So, I I really want to know what's your opinion on this stadium.

[00:11:05]>> 1991, a new constitution was drafted with a free market economy, establishing the modern state of Romania. In 2004, Romania joined the European Union. In recent times, there has been a movement for reunification with Moldova, which unlike Romania had been part of the USSR. And a big shout out to Cosmin, who has been patiently requesting this video for many months. And all my fantastic patrons over on Patreon. Don't forget to like and subscribe. This has been Epimetheus. Thank you so much for watching till the end. That was a really nice video. Very straightforward. Not too many animations. That's That's just how I like it, you know? Just a map, then you're going to show us some informations. That's perfect to me, you know? That's the best way to learn. When there's too many animations, too much stuff going on, I always get carried away and don't cannot focus too much on the main story. So, yeah, I like this channel. Definitely going to check out more more videos from this channel.

[00:12:02]Okay, so I hope this one was nice to watch. Hope the informations were correct. If you want to correct something, please let me know what's what what was wrong in the comment section. And yeah, if you have any more videos in mind that I should check out about Romania, let me know also in the comment section. See you soon.