There were many Romans living in the province of Roman Dacia. They spoke Vulgar Latin. They began to write the local languages using the Latin alphabet. Writing languages with the Latin alphabet is called romanization. This became the first version of Romanian.
In the 3rd century, the province was attacked by groups of nomadic people like the Goths. They made the Roman Empire leave Dacia about 271 . This became the Roman Empire's first abandoned province.
The origin of modern Romanians is widely talked about by historians to this day. It is thought that the Romanians were formed from large ethnic groups that came from both the south and north parts of the Danube.
From 271 to 275, the Goths took over the abandoned Roman province. They lived in Dacia until the 4th century, when another group of wandering peoples, the Huns, came to Dacia. The Gepids, Avars, with the Slavic people, were in control of Transylvania through the 8th century. In the 8th century, however, the country was taken over by the Hungarian Empire. It was made part of the First Bulgarian Empire, which ended Romania's Dark Ages.
The Bulgarians held Transylvania until the 11th century. The Pechenegs, the Cumans, and the Uzes were a few of the people later noted in the history of Romania.
In 1310, now called the High Middle Ages, Basarab I started the Romanian principality of Wallachia. Moldavia was begun by Dragoş around 1352. During the Middle Ages, Romanians were living in three different areas: Wallachia (Romanian: "Ţara Românească"—"Romanian Land"), Moldavia (Romanian: "Moldova"), and Transylvania.
Transylvania belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary from around the 10th century until the 16th century, when it turned into the Principality of Transylvania. This lasted until 1711. Wallachia had been on the border of the Ottoman Empire since the 14th century. As the Ottoman Empire's influence grew, it gradually fell under the suzerainty (control) of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
The best known ruler of this period was Vlad III the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, or "", , Prince of Wallachia, during the years of 1448, 1456–62, and 1476. While he was the leader of his people, he had an agreement with the Ottoman Empire to stay independent. Many people in Romania during this time thought of him as a ruler with a great sense of justice and defense for his country.
Moldavia was at its greatest when Stephen the Great was ruling between 1457 and 1504. He was a great military leader, winning 47 battles and losing only 2. After every battle he won, Stephen would build a church. Because he won 47 of the battles that he fought, he ended up building 48 churches. After Stephen the Great's death, Moldavia came under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century.
When Transylvania was the organic part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire was in control of Wallachia and Moldavia, almost all of the Romanians had limited rights as a citizen. They stayed this way even when they made up most of the people in those areas.
After Wallachian Revolution of 1821 as in the 1830s was addressed nationalists thoughts and feelings into Romania and became called ""National awakening of Romania'"'. Even then adopted a 3-colored flag, blue-yellow-red, which was later to become a Flag of Romania.
After the even more violent Revolution of 1848 did not succeed, so explained the Great Powers did not like the idea of Romania becoming a free nation and it was not a real possibility.
The people who voted in 1859 in Moldavia and Wallachia picked the same person – Alexandru Ioan Cuza – to be the prince in those areas. He managed to unite the people and nationalism was seen as a useful method.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza walked with cautious steps he was not proclaiming a declaration of independence immediately because he knew it would bring a new war. Instead he let Moldavia and Wallachia merged in the United Principalities of the Ottoman Empire and increasing self-government to a greater degree.
The new union was at the front of today's Romania. With cautious steps we freed itself more and Bucharest was established as the capital. However, farmers had more land when serfdom was abolished, which led to a coup d'état against the Alexandru Ioan Cuza staged by peasants who overthrew the regime.
Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen became the new leader, and was later called Prince Carol I of Romania. While the Russo-Turkish War was happening, Romania battled on the Russian side. When the Treaty of Berlin of 1878 was signed, the Great Powers made Romania an independent state. In return, they had to give Russia three of their southern districts of Bessarabia. In 1881, the principality became a kingdom, with Prince Carol ruling as King Carol I.
When World War I started in August of 1914, Romania said it was a neutral country. In 1916, the Allies promised to give Romania parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire where many Romanians lived, if Romania started a war against Austria-Hungary.
The Romanian military campaign ended in disaster after Romania's forces were stopped in 1917. Many died. Moldova was one of the few parts of Romania that was not captured when it stopped its attackers in 1917. The Allies won the war, Austria-Hungary had been weakened, and an independent Hungarian republic was proclaimed. As promised, Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. After the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, Hungary, as agreed, gave up the claims of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy over Transylvania. Romania and Bukovina were joined together in 1919 as a result of the Treaty of Saint Germain. Bessarabia joined with Romania in 1920 when the Treaty of Paris was signed.
After World War I was much bigger and more nationalist. The small Kingdom received ("major Transylvania"). The principalities Wallachia, Moldavia and Bessarabia (Moldova) together formed the "Greater Romania" 1918-1940. "Greater Romania" did not survive World War II.
Romanians called their country "România Mare", meaning "Great Romania" or "Greater Romania", in the time between World War I and World War II. They called it so because it controlled of land.
The Great Depression meant social unrest, high unemployment, strikes and riots, especially a miners' strike in 1929 in Valea Jiului and a strike in Griviţas maintenance workshops. By the mid-1930s, with a recovering Romanian economy, industry grew, although about 80% of Romanians still were engaged in agriculture.
In end of 1930s, Romania's liberal democracy was slowly being replaced by the fascist dictatorship. The Archangel Michael Legion, known as the Iron Guard organization, was led by Corneliu Codreanu Zelea. In 1937 elections the party supported Adolf Hitler and Nazism and got 15.5% of the votes and became the third biggest party. In 1938 king Carol II of Romania seized power over Romania. He dissolved all political parties and executed Corneliu Codreanu Zelea along with 12 other leaders.
Carol II of Romania declared the country as neutral when World War II broke out in 1939, but included since the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and northern Bukovina an alliance with Hitler's Germany. This occurred after field marshal Ion Antonescu forced the authoritarian Carol II of Romania to abdicate. Antonescu appointed himself "conducator", Romania's dictator, and signed at the November 23 of 1940 three-powers pact with Nazi Germany. Hitler's Germany was dependent on a continuous importation of fuel and crude oil from the Romanian oil fields of Ploesti. In 1940, yjr Kingdom of Hungary took over the legitimate domination in Northern Transylvania to the end of the World War II.
The country's troops fought together with the German Wehrmacht against the Soviet Union.