Tomas Masaryk was the first president of Czechoslovakia who founded the country on October 28th, 1918. He was born in 1850 and died in 1937, coming from a poor family originally named John Thomas but later taking the name Tomas Masaryk. Masaryk studied at Charles University in Prague and served as the first president until his death, overseeing the founding and early governance of Czechoslovakia.