In the 19th century, until 1867 when the Habsburg Empire transfomed into Austria-Hungary, Hungary was kind of a colony for Austria - no state money spent on developments. Among the Hungarian nobility, a lot just wanted to continue exploiding peasants as before, but many - especially the Western-educated - wanted to start industrialisation. This was the so-called "Reform Age", when a series of projects were financed by enlightened aristocrats. The most important was one István Széchenyi, of whom the bridge is officially named.

This bridge was the first permanent bridge on the Danube below Vienna (discounting Hadrian's long-gone bridge). It was revolutionary for the time that a universal bridge ticket was chosen as the means to get back the investment (aristocrats were tax-free at this time). Széchenyi called two British engineers, William Tierney Clark who designed it and Scotsman Adam Clark (unrelated) who supervised construction (then stayed here, marrying a Hungarian woman whose language he didn't speak until his death, nor did she speak English or Scot!)

Just when the bridge neared finishing, the flame of revolution swept Europe: in 1848. It lasted the longest in Hungary, where the Habsburgs called on the Russians to help defeat the independent Hungarian government. During the conflict, first the half-finished deck of the bridge was used for treasury evacuations then burnt; and when all was over in 1849, Haynau, the victorious Habsburg general who was put in charge of retribution, wanted to blow it up - only Adam Clark's protests made him stop. It was finally opened on 20 November 1849, and would be one of the oldest surviving bridges had the Germans not blown it up in 1944.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}