Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
Since the federalization in 1968, Czechoslovakia had divided citizenship, either of the Czech Socialist Republic or of the Slovak Socialist Republic (the word 'Socialist' was dropped from both names shortly after the Velvet Revolution). This distinction, however, had little effect on the citizen's life. On January 1, 1993, all Czechoslovak citizens automatically became citizens either of the Czech Republic or the Slovak Republic, based on their previous citizenship, permanent residence address, birthplace, family ties, job, and other criteria. Additionally, people had one year's time to claim the other citizenship under certain conditions.
Slovak Americans
In 1915, the leaders of the Czech National Alliance and the Slovak League of America signed the Cleveland Agreement, in which they pledged to cooperate for the common goal of independent statehood for the Czechs and Slovaks. The agreement's five articles laid out the basics of a future joint state for the two nationalities. Three years later, the Pittsburgh Agreement was concluded by representatives of Czechs and Slovaks at a meeting of the American branch of the Czechoslovak National Council in Pittsburgh. The agreement endorsed a program for the struggle for a common state of Czecho-Slovakia and agreed that the new state would be a democratic republic in which Slovakia would have its own administration, legislature, and courts. On October 18, 1918, the primary author of the agreement, T. G. Masaryk, whose father was Slovak and mother Moravian, declared the independence of Czechoslovakia on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was elected the first President of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1920.