Boarding @ Home: Day 70/84: Born this day - Prince Rainier III & Viktor Orbán

We're passing on the National Days today taking Birth Days in lieu! Just for the record however the Nationals on offer are 'Macaroon Day' & 'World No Tobacco Day'. The Wills family can hardly go for No Tobacco WD & HO having based its Bristol fortune on that very leaf originally resourced by slavery in America from its establishment in 1786.
Viktor Mihály Orbán. Born 31 May 1963, he has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010 and held that office from 1998 to 2002. He's been President of Fidesz national conservative political party since 1993.Born in Székesfehérvár, Orbán studied law at Eötvös Loránd University graduating in 1987 then briefly political science at Pembroke College Oxford. He returned to Hungary to enter politics in the wake of the Autumn of Nations as the USSR collapsed. Orbán became a nationally known politician after giving an address at the 1989 reburial of deposed [and subsequently executed] Premier Imre Nagy and other martyrs of the 1956 Revolution crushed by the USSR. In his speech he openly demanded that Soviet troops still there must withdraw from his country. After the transition to democracy in 1990 he was elected to the National Assembly and served as the leader of Fidesz's parliamentary caucus which gradually shifted away from its centre-right, classical liberal, pro-European integration platform toward more right-wing national conservatism. Fidesz won a plurality of seats in the 1998 election and Orbán was appointed Prime Minister for the first time but lost 4 years later to the Socialist Party, with Orbán spending this period as Leader of the Opposition. The popularity of the Socialists declined, exacerbated by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's "Őszöd speech" famously admitting misleading the electorate that was followed by riots across Budapest. Orbán led Fidesz to a landslide victory in 2010. Orbán formed a coalition with the Christian Democrats giving him a supermajority in the National Assembly which he used to introduce major constitutional and legislative reforms. Fidesz has retained its supermajority at the 2014 and 2018 elections. Orbán's social conservatism, national conservatism, soft Euroscepticism and advocacy of what he describes as an "illiberal state" have attracted significant international attention and criticism as authoritarianism. He is forceful in his responses to EU not least on immigration.

Prince Rainier III is most famous for his marriage to Grace Kelly. Born 31st May 1923 - 40 years before Viktor Orbán; died 2005. Though internationally best known for his marriage to American actress Grace Kelly in April 1956 he was also responsible for reforms to Monaco's constitution and for expanding the Principality's economy.. Gambling accounts for only approximately three per cent of the nation's annual revenue today; when Rainier ascended the throne in 1949 it accounted for more than 95 per cent. He had three children with Princess Grace - Princess Caroline born in 1957; Prince Albert II in 1958 who inherited the throne of Monaco in 2005; and Princess Stéphanie born in 1965. He was educated in Sussex and then later at at Stowe School in Buckingham. He went on to study in Switzerland but eventually graduated BA from Université de Montpellier. Rainier joined the Free French Army in September 1944 serving under General de Monsabert as a second lieutenant seeing action during the German counter-offensive in Alsace. He received the French Croix de Guerre with bronze star and was given the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor in 1947. After ascending the throne Rainier worked assiduously to recoup Monaco's lustre, which had become tarnished through neglect and scandal. He was faced on ascension with a Treasury that was practically empty. Other gambling centres had opened to compete with Monaco so to compensate for this loss Rainier decided to promote Monaco as a tax haven, commercial centre, real-estate development opportunity, and international tourist attraction - all of which it duly became.
…. and Yes, since 3.15pm our palindromic fence is now wholly recoloured woodland moss; and the books stall on the roadside still 'sells' well!