Slovakia's Prime Minister announced his resignation this week.

If you missed the difference between those two statements the first time you read them, you're not alone.

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico quit over a scandal following the murder of a journalist investigating government corruption. Slovenia's leader Miro Cerar - completely independently - resigned after a court ruling struck down a massive railway project.

But the two European nations have been plagued by confusion about their identities ever since their creation in the 1990s.

Anthem errors

A quick search on Google will uncover dozens of tweets about US First Lady Melania Trump's Slovakian heritage - which doesn't exist. She was born in Sevnica, a Slovenian town (the president's ex-wife, Ivana, was born in Czechoslovakia, but we'll get there).

A curse on both nations, though, is that the wrong flag or the wrong anthem has appeared at many events. Last year, it was the Ice Hockey World Championships in Germany, where angry Slovaks were forced to drown out the Slovenian anthem with boos and whistles.

They were later told their anthem wouldn't be played due to "technical problems".

And the confusion is nothing new. George W Bush famously once talked about his meeting with the Slovak foreign minister - a meeting which never happened. In 2003, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi introduced the prime minister of Slovakia at a press conference. It was Anton Rop - from Slovenia.

"It was very strange, we asked journalists not to mention it in their reports," Mr Rop later said.

It's such a common occurrence that The New Yorker magazine reported on an event last year staged by the two London embassies, titled: "Distinguish Slovenia and Slovakia".

And one popular myth - perpetuated by the BBC's own QI quiz show - is that the Washington embassies meet up to swap their misaddressed mail once a month.

That is not quite true, but has its root in a 2004 comment to the New York Times from an anonymous Slovenian ambassador somewhere in Europe.

So where does all this confusion stem from?

What's in a name?

The two countries have similar names, similar flags, and a similar history.

The flags, first of all, are nearly identical - made up of horizontal stripes of red, blue, and white. The key difference is the crest - which, helpfully, is positioned on the left in both.

Source:
courtesy of BBC NEWS

by BBC NEWS

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