United Principalities

The United Principalities was the personal union of Moldavia and Wallachia that became Romania, formed on 5 February 1859 when both thrones elected the same man, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, as Domnitor. The two lands stayed Ottoman vassals, formally joining in 1862 while the Sultan's flag still flew, and Cuza ruled from Bucharest with Iasi as the Moldavian seat. Cuza unified the administrations and sought foreign recognition until the landowners threw him out in a coup in 1864. He ruled on authoritarian until the Liberals forced his abdication into exile in 1866, and the German prince Karl of Hohenzollern entered Bucharest on 22 May, took the name Carol, and gave the country a constitution and the name Romania, still under Ottoman suzerainty until the war of 1877 made it real. In 1881 the principalities became a kingdom, and the twenty-two year apprenticeship of the Romanian nation state ended where modern Romania begins.