 
The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the Red Hill () archeological site in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people known by name. One of the Celtic tribes were the Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name "Boiohaemum" – Latin for "the Land of Boii". Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.
After the turbulent times of the Migration Period, the Czech lands were ultimately settled by the Slavic tribes. The year of 623 marks the formation of the first known state in the Czech lands, when Samo united the local Slavic tribes, defended their lands from the Avars to the east and – few years later – won the battle of Wogastisburg against the Franks invading the Czech lands from the west. The next state appearing in the Czech lands after the dissolution of the Samo's state was probably the Great Moravia. The center of its power lay in the area of Moravia and present-day western Slovakia. In 863, Cyril and Methodius, two scholars from Greece, brought Christianity to the Great Moravia and established the first Slavic script – Glagolitsa. The Great Moravia fell during the Magyar invasion at the start of the 10th century.
A new state formed around the tribe of Premyslids, who founded the Duchy of Bohemia. The duchy existed largely within the sphere of influence of the East Franconia and later the Holy Roman Empire. The duchy sided with the Roman Catholic Church during the East-West Schism and in 1212, the duke Ottokar I was granted the hereditary title of king for his service to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. The Přemyslid dynasty died out at the start of the 14th century and was replaced by the Luxembourg dynasty. The most notable of the Luxembourg rulers was Charles IV, who was elected the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He established the Archbishopric of Prague and Charles University, the first university north of the Alps and east of Paris. The start of the 15th century saw the rise of Proto-Protestantic sentiments in the Czech lands. The execution of Jan Hus sparked the Hussite Wars and the religious split that followed them. The Jagiellon dynasty ascended the Czech throne in 1471. They ruled for half a century before the king Louis Jagiellon died in the Battle of Mohács and the empty throne was given to the House of Habsburg.
After the death of the Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, the religious and political tensions grew, resulting in the Second Defenestration of Prague, which sparked the Thirty Years' War. Many of the Czech nobles supported the Protestant side and were stripped of their properties as a result. Germanization and recatholicisation of the Czech lands followed. The spread of Romanticism during the late 18th century went hand in hand with the movement of the Czech National Revival. After 1848, the leading representatives of the Czech National Revival increased their political efforts to gain more autonomy for the Czech lands within the Habsburg Monarchy.
The start of World War I opened the possibility of gaining full independence and formation of a sovereign state. In the Cleveland Agreement of 1915, the Czech and Slovak representatives declared their goal of creating a common state, based on the right of a people to self-determination. After the capitulation of Austria-Hungary three years later, the Czechoslovak Republic became a reality. The so-called First Republic lasted for 20 years, cut short by the advent of the World War II. Following the end of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia took power in 1948, and Czechoslovakia became a member of the Eastern Bloc. In August 1968, armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia to prevent further attempts at the reformation of the Communist system. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution replaced the Communist regime with a democratic Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. Three years later, Czech and Slovak representatives agreed to the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the formation of separate states. In 1999, the Czech Republic joined Nato and in 2004, became a member of the European Union.
Ancient times.
Stone Age.
A simple chopper – left by the ancestors of the present-day Homo Sapiens – dated to 800,000 BCE was uncovered in Red Hill in Brno. First evidence of human camps was found in Přezletice near Prague and in Stránská skála near Brno which dates to about 200,000 years after that. 
Stone tools were found in the Kůlna Cave in central Moravia, with the estimated age of 120,000 years. More stone tools and the skeletal remains of a Neanderthal man were found at the same site in a 50,000-year-old layer.
Human remains from 45,000 years ago were found in Koněprusy Caves in Zlatý kůň at Beroun District. Human remains from 30,000 years BCE were found in Mladeč caves mammoth tusks with complex engravings (again around 30,000 BCE) were found both in Pavlov and Předmostí at Přerov, making south Moravia one of the most important archeological areas in Europe.
The archeological site in Předmostí at Přerov represents the largest accumulation of human remains of the Gravettian culture, 
known for creating so-called Venus figurines. One of such figurines is the famous Venus of Dolní Věstonice (29,000–25,000 BCE) found in Dolní Věstonice in south Moravia along with many other artifacts from that time. Another Venus figurine is the Venus of Petřkovice, found in what is today Ostrava. Remains of mammoth hunters from 22,000 BCE were also found in the aforementioned Kůlna Cave along with the remains of reindeer hunters and horse hunters, dated to about 10,000 years later. Approximately between 5500 and 4500 BCE, people of the Linear Pottery culture resided in Czech lands. Their settlement was discovered in Bylany near Kutná hora. Their culture was succeeded by the Lengyel culture, Funnelbeaker culture and Stroke-ornamented ware culture, which coexisted in the Czech Lands during the end of the Stone Age.
Copper Age and Bronze Age.
Corded Ware culture in the north and Baden culture in the south were the predominant cultures in the Czech Lands throughout the Copper Age. The Bell Beaker culture represented the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. With the start of the Bronze Age, Únětice culture appeared. This culture got its name from a village near Prague, where the first discovery was made in the 1870s. Many of their burial mounds were uncovered, mostly in central Bohemia. It was followed by the Middle Bronze Age Tumulus culture from around 1600 BC. The Urnfield culture is blanket term for various Late Bronze Age cultures dating from c. 1300-800 BC who cremated their dead and buried the urns with their ashes. The Hallstatt culture was the last culture of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The key archeological site of the Hallstatt culture in the Czech Lands is the Býčí skála Cave, where a rare bronze statue of a bull was found. Many of these archeological sites were occupied by multiple cultures throughout the ancient times.
Iron Age.
The area was settled by the Celtic tribes at the start of the Iron Age. The most prominent tribe in Bohemia were the Boii (plural), who gave the area the name of "Boiohaemia" (Latin for "the land of Boii"), which later turned into Bohemia. Before the start of the 1st century CE, they were pushed out by various Germanic tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards). Around 60 to 50 BC, the Dacian king Burebista established an empire that extended its reach into the lands of the Boii. The Dacian occupation primarily affected modern-day Slovakia but also held sway over regions of present-day Czech Republic and Pannonia. Following Burebista's demise in 44 BC, his empire crumbled, liberating the lands of the Boii from Dacian rule. Traces of Roman army camps were found in south Moravia, most notably near Mušov. The winter camp in Mušov was built to house approximately 20,000 soldiers. The Romans were repeatedly at war with the Marcomanni tribe during the first two centuries CE. Germanic towns are described on the Map of Ptolemaios from the 2nd century, e.g. Coridorgis for Jihlava.
Arrival of the Slavs.
The following centuries of what is known as the Great Migration once again changed the ethnic composition of the Czech Lands. In the 6th century, Slavic tribes, displaced by Langobard and Thuringian tribes began to move into the Czech Lands from the east. They fought with neighboring Avars – Turko-Tartar nomads – who seized the Pannonia and frequently raided the Slavic lands and even the Frankish Empire.
Samo's realm.
In 623 – according to the Chronicle of Fredegar – the Slavic tribes revolted against the oppression of the Avars. During this time, the Frankish merchant Samo allegedly came to the Czech lands with his entourage and joined with the Slavs to defeat the Avars. Thus the Slavs adopted Samo as their ruler. Later Samo and the Slavs came into conflict with the Frankish empire whose ruler Dagobert I wanted to extend his rule to the east. That led to the Battle of Wogastisburg in 631, in which the newly established Realm of Samo successfully defended its autonomy. The realm disintegrated after Samo's death.
Medieval times.
Great Moravia.
The realm of Great Moravia probably was established in the area of today's Moravia and western Slovakia in the 830s. It saw the rise of the first ever Slavic literary culture in the Old Church Slavonic language and the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet dedicated to a Slavic language. Glagolitic was later simplified into the Cyrillic alphabet that is today used in Russia and many countries in eastern Europe and central Asia. Glagolitic was created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius, who arrived in Great Moravia in 863 from Thessaloniki in Byzantine Empire. They were invited by the king Rastislav who invited them to introduce literacy and a legal system to Great Moravia. His nephew and successor Svatopluk I's diplomacy was oriented more towards Rome. Great Moravia was taken under the protection of the Holy See in 880 and six years after, he expelled the disciples of Methodius after their teacher's death. During his reign, Great Moravia's sphere of influence reached its peak. After his death, the realm was split among his sons and soon after fell to ruin due to infighting and constant Magyar raids during the start of the 10th century.
Duchy of Bohemia.
Bořivoj from Levý Hradec was the first known member of the Přemyslid dynasty. In 880, he moved his residence to Prague Castle, which laid the foundation of the city of Prague that emerged centuries later. He was a vassal to the kings of Great Moravia and was baptised during the christanisation of Great Moravia by St. Cyril and St. Methodius. His son Spytihněv I together with the head of another major Bohemian tribe Witizla used the collapse of Great Moravia and in 895 swore allegiance to the East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia. Spytihněv's nephew Wenceslaus (later proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church) ruled from 921 and had to submit to the Saxon king Henry I in order to maintain his ducal authority. He was murdered by his younger brother Boleslaus I. Boleslaus I expanded the Duchy of Bohemia eastwards conquering the lands of Moravia and Silesia and areas around Kraków. He stopped paying tribute to the Saxon king igniting a war which he lost and was forced to recognize Saxon suzerainty over the Duchy of Bohemia. The Bishopric of Prague was founded in 973 during the reign of his son Boleslaus II. The bishopric was subordinated to the Archbishopric of Mainz.
In 1002, during the reign of the duke Vladivoj, the Duchy of Bohemia formally became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. After