Whereas, on January 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson called for the free autonomous development of the peoples of Austria-Hungary in the Fourteen Points address to a joint session of Congress, contributing to the support of an independent Czech and Slovak nation State; Whereas the peoples of the present-day Czech Republic and Slovak Republic proclaimed independence on October 28, 1918, and October 30, 1918, respectively, forming the common state of the Republic of Czechoslovakia; Whereas, on November 12, 1918, the United States and Czechoslovakia established formal diplomatic relations; Whereas, in February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power from the democratically elected Government of Czechoslovakia; Whereas, on August 20, 1968, 20 Soviet and Warsaw Pact military divisions invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, a period of increased political and economic liberty following the appointment of Alexander Dubcek as First Secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party; Whereas, in the nonviolent Velvet Revolution of November 1989, the peoples of both nations overthrew 40 years of totalitarian communist rule and ended two decades of Soviet occupation; Whereas, after the Velvet Revolution, the peoples of Czechoslovakia established vibrant, pluralistic, democratic political systems based on free-market economics, freedom of speech, a free press, free and fair elections, the rule of law, and respect for human rights—values embodied by Václav Havel, the first president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism in that country; Whereas, on February 21, 1990, Czechoslovak President Václav Havel delivered his historic address before the joint session of the United States Congress on Czechoslovakia’s path to democracy; Whereas, on January 1, 1993, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic were formally created as independent nation states after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia