Deésy was born Alfréd Kämpf in Dés, Austria-Hungary (now Dej, Romania); his stage name means "from Dés," much as "Lugosi" means "from Lugos."
Moreover, the final years of the regime saw the publishing of Karl Marx texts which had previously been kept secret, dealing with Russia's imperial policy in previously Romanian regions that were still part of the Soviet Union.
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In an attempt to increase the dialogue between Romania and the West, in 1956 Gheorghiu-Dej instructed the new ambassador to the U.S. to meet with both Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and then with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In town are the remnants of two castles from the Zemene Mesafint ("Era of Princes"), one (pictured) owned by Dej Desta, the other by the Ras Sebhat Aregawi.
From 1948 to 1964, during the rule of Communist dictator Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the commune was called Generalisimul Suvorov, after Alexander Suvorov, the 18th-century Russian general who won several battles in the area.
European route E576, a European route class B road connecting the Romanian cities of Dej and Cluj-Napoca
According to Apostol himself, an ailing Gheorghiu-Dej would have decided to appoint him as his successor in 1964: as confirmation, Apostol was sent to represent the Romanian government at Jawaharlal Nehru's funeral.
On 4 November 1957, a plane carrying Romanian Workers' Party officials, including the most prominent politicians of Communist Romania (Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Chivu Stoica, Alexandru Moghioroş, Ştefan Voitec, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Leonte Răutu, and Grigore Preoteasa), was involved in an accident at Vnukovo Airport.