Happy Freedom and Democracy Day, Slovakia!

The present Doodle celebrates Slovakia’s Freedom and Democracy Day, a yearly occasion recognizing two courageous student protests separated by half a century of history.

On November 15, 1939, a great many students in the previous country of Czechoslovakia took a chance with their lives to fight the German powers that had involved the nation.

A little more than 50 years after the fact, on November 17, 1989, a peaceful student exhibit giving proper respect to those occasions started the start of the Velvet Revolution and the nation’s eventual independence from Soviet principle.

The present Doodle portrays Slovakia’s national flag, which was set up shortly before Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1993.

At the left of the flag sits Slovakia’s memorable escutcheon, whose plan can be followed back longer than a thousand years to the Byzantine Empire.

The banner’s red, white, and blue components speak to the Pan-Slavic colors, first picked by the Pan-Slavic Congress of 1848.