500 Lei 200 years since the birth of Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected ruler of both Moldavia and Wallachia in January 1859 — two separate votes, two nominally distinct thrones — effectively unifying the Romanian principalities through a constitutional loophole the Great Powers had not anticipated and could not easily reverse. The act forced diplomatic recognition of a de facto unified Romanian state years before formal independence from Ottoman suzerainty was achieved in 1877.

Cuza was deposed in 1866 by a coalition of political opponents who smuggled themselves into his bedroom at three in the morning and forced his abdication at gunpoint.