Kosice is the second biggest city in Slovakia and also a metropole of its Eastern part. This city with more than 250 000 haitants is turistically very popular and has a very rich history with a lot of cultural sights.We can assume that sometimes aout the last ice age a first man came to this area and found a cage overlooking the river Hornad. Before the Slavic tribes this place was inhabited by Celts and Germans.
The first settlement dates back 100 000 years ago. Shortly after residents, merchants and craftsmen mingled here, Kosice was always a cultural crossroad. The first written record of Kosice is from 1230 shortly before theyear 1241 when Kosice was wiped out by Tatar invasion. Around the year 1290 Kosice was given a status of Royal Free Townn, that meant that people had the right to elect their mayor and the town council, the right to arrange their own defence system and the right to maage their own judicial system. The 13th and 14th centuries were the time of commercial activity when German merchants moved to the town. In 1369 Ludvig Anjou granted Kosice their own coat of arms, it was the very first time in history that a coat of arms was given as a symbol of sovereignty. If the town had its own judicial system it had to have its own prison, Miklus prison was built sometime in the 16th century annd served its purpose until the beginning of the 19th century, after it became the part of museum network in Kosice.
Then, during the 16th century, Hungarians came and their leader Jan Zapolsky occupied the town and forced Germans to move to famous Transylvania. By the way, Hunngarian aristocrats left many beautiful dwellings in our town. The Slovak, Germa and Hungarian ethnic mix was complemented by Jewish and Gypsies in the 19th century, when Jews settled mainly in the cenntre while Gypsies set up their camps outside the town. The year 1867 meant the beginning of Hungarian influence, many Slovaks, Jews and Germans clung to their ethnic roots and they were afraid of discrimination from Hungarians.Until 1918 Slovakia was the part of Habsburg empire, after the first World War the first partnership with Czechs was established until the Nazi occupation placed Kosice back to the hands of Hungary, and finally in 1945 Kosice was liberated by Soviet Union.After the first Czechoslovak republic was established in 1918 a small group of Czech workers and soldiers came to Kosice.