25 December 1847 (6 January 1848)
The wife of Botyo Petkov, a humble teacher from Kalofer, gave birth to a boy who would become the leading light of Bulgarian literature and the national movement for liberation from Ottoman rule.
A poet and a man who always spoke his mind, Hristo Botev is among the most charming personalities in Bulgarian history. He took up the revolutionary ideas of his age during his brief studies in Odessa. In 1867 he had to leave Bulgaria and move to Romania after he gave a rather rebellious speech in the centre of Kalofer. In 1871 he began publishing a succession of newspapers full of witty articles which spelled out his ideas for national liberation. Three years later, he joined the Bulgarian Central Revolutionary Committee, which was fighting for the freedom of Bulgaria. He became head of the committee in 1875 after a scandal with its previous leader, Lyuben Karavelov. When the April Uprising broke out in 1876, Botev crossed the Danube at the head of a band of insurgents, after hijacking an Austro-Hungarian steamer, but he was killed on 2 July at Mt Vola. In his short but eventful life, Botev wrote 20 poems and several satirical articles, which are now regarded as among the best of Bulgarian literature.
1 January 1901
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The first tram crossed Sofia, which at that time stretched from the tram depot near the Central Railway Station to Slaveykov Sq. The six main routes, with 25 trams, were finished shortly afterwards. At first, there were first and second class trams, but this distinction was soon given up as discriminatory. It must have been more comfortable to travel at the beginning of the 20th Century than it is now. In 1901 the tram halted wherever it was convenient for the passenger, even if there was no designated stop. When there were too many passengers the conductor put up a sign saying "Full" and did not allow anybody else to get on.
11 January 1989
Bulgarians in Communist Bulgaria could not believe their eyes: the official Rabotnichesko Delo daily published Decree No 56, which allowed the setting up of small private businesses. This was the first time something like this had happened since the Communist coup of 1944 and the ensuing nationalisation of factories and arable land. However, this liberalisation was not all-embracing. The state retained control of the main infrastructure sectors and appropriated up to 80 percent of the entrepreneurs' profits. Reform had become imperative after the economic collapse of the mid-1980s and was carried out by dictator Todor Zhivkov personally. The first years after the democratic changes of 1989 showed that Decree No 56 was designed not to support the common man but as a tool to plunder the state coffers by the regime and its cronies. After the state companies were transformed into joint-stock companies they were immediately signed off as private companies without any public tendering at the beginning of the 1990s.
15 January 1990
Bulgaria officially became a democratic country when Parliament repealed Article 1 of the current Constitution. It had been passed in 1971 and the very first lines declared: "The leading force in society and the state is the Bulgarian Communist Party." This change happened only after dictator Todor Zhivkov was ousted from power in an internal coup on 10 November 1989 and a large rally demanded that Article 1 be revoked on 14 December. The present constitution was adopted on 12 July 1991.
