Pest, Hungary

According to Ptolemy, the settlement was called Pession in antiquity, with the official Roman name being Contra-Aquincum (see Aquincum for Roman town across the Danube in what became Óbuda). Alternatively, the name Pest may have come from a Slavic word meaning "furnace", "oven" (Bulgarian ; Serbian /peć; Croatian peć), related to the word (peshtera, meaning "cave"), probably in reference to a local cave where fire burned. The spelling Pesth was occasionally used in English, even as late as the early 20th century, although it is now considered archaic. ==History==

completed in 1880, which forms a circular arc between Deák Ferenc tér and Fővám tér. In 1838 Pest was flooded by the Danube; parts of the city were under as much as eight feet of water, and the flood destroyed or seriously damaged three-fourths of the city's buildings. In 1849 the first suspension bridge, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, was constructed across the Danube connecting Pest with Buda. Subsequently, in 1873, the two cities were unified with Óbuda to become Budapest. ==Notable people==

• László Teleki (1811–1861), writer, statesman and magician • Henrik Weber (1818–1866), painter • Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), founder of the political Zionist movement • Harry Houdini (1874–1926), illusionist and escape acts performer • Franz Rausch (1792-1877), piano maker ==See also==