To say that we live under tyranny means to ignore the cold, poverty, and terror in which millions of people lived for hundreds of years, and that many millions still suffer
Nadia Comaneci, Romanian gymnast who was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic event. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, she received seven perfect scores and won gold medals in the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars, and the all-around competition. She also won gold at the 1980 Games.
Ceausescu and his wife wrecked the lives of their countrymen - and their own family. For a spell, their daughter-in-law and grandson laid low in Old Orchard Beach.
A deep economic crisis hit the whole world between
1929-1933. Also known as the Great economic Crash, the crisis, among other
things, translated into violence, an increasingly poor living standard, strikes
and protest rallies. Romania was also marred by this crisis, having its dismal share
of the aftermath and the ensuing social unrest. Strikes and protest rallies
flared up countrywide, especially in the industrial regions. Illustrative of such
a situation was the 1929 miners strike in Lupeni. Back then workers were
protesting against the so-called sacrifice curbs, meaning salary cuts and price
hikes. During the aforementioned four-year span, another strong protest
movement was the strike staged over January-February 1933 by the railway
workers employed by Bucharest s Grivita Repair workshops. However, the strike
was equally politicized by the communist regime that held Romania under its
grip between 1945 and 1989.
If we take some time to examine documents of tha