Quick Facts
- The largest and arguably the most powerful state in all of Europe for 300 years (longer than the existence of the United States).
- The only nation capable of impeding attacks on western Europe from the Mongol Golden Horde and the Tartars (may we not take some credit for the rise of the Renaissance).
- Organized and led allied forces against the Teutonic Knights in the most significant, largest and fiercest battle in medieval European history, Battle of Žalgiris/Tannenberg/Grunwald-1410
- The last European nation to be Christianized.
- Its inhabitants are the speakers of the oldest, unchanged living language (quote attributed to German writer and philosopher, Goethe, “If you wish to hear how our ancestors spoke, listen to the Lithuanians.”)
- First European nation to implement a democratic constitution.
- The Lithuanian partisan war 1944-53 was the longest and bloodiest guerrilla war of modern Europe.
- Started the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the first nation to declare its independence.
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