The ancient Romanian Land of Calata, used to cover in the Middle Ages a chain of submontane and montane establishments from the Beretaului valley in Bihor to Somes, in Transylvania, establishments that contained Calata, Calatele, Finciu and Valeni villages (Dealu-Negru and Calatele-Padure villages appeared only in the 20th century).
Two of the oldest villages in the Land of Calata, attested in 1213, are Calata and Valeni. The Slavic-Romanian toponym of Calata, which gave the name to the entire land, is an evidence of the Romanian continuity in this part of Romania.
After the first attestation of Calata village in 1213, a document from 1256 mentions the Calata area, tangentially, in a letter of the king of Hungary, Bela the fourth. With this occasion is specified the customhouse from Vadu Crisului and the road from Calata, obviously an important trade route that used to link Transylvania with Tara Crisurilor and the two trading towns Cluj with Oradea. In this document was mentioned the Land of Calata not Calata village.
A highly significant event for the Romanians from Calata village was the registration of their village among the 17 villages belonging to the Bologa citadel, including the citadel, gave at 23 January 1389 by the Hungarian king, Sigismund of Luxemburg, to the regnant of Tara Romaneasca, Mircea cel Batran. Hence we can easily imagine the new matters of the village in regard to the beneficiaries of the great highlander waivode, but also the development of the relations concerning the orthodox confession, the new economical positions towards the waivode's court, having the same blood as the habitants of the village.
The village Calatele, as well as Maguri and Buteni, used to be, in the beginning of the 17th century, a powerful Romanian center for the shingle handicraft. The Romanian craftsmen from Calatele were always present with their products in Cluj city.
The great insurrection of the Romanian peasantry against both social and national oppressions from 1784-1785 had a powerful echo in the villages of Calatele township as well. The habitants of Calata were seeing in Horia a genuine leader of the Romanians. Therefore, at the assemblage from May 1782 from Campeni, they gathered in a large number. The conflict that took place then, between the highlanders and the Armenian landholders preceded the insurrection from the fall of 1784.
For preventing any kind of rebellion of the peasants from the Land of Calata, the insurgent Hungarian nobleness from Cluj shire had established its military camp close to this area, exactly over today's Calatele township territory, in Valeni, where was also Hungarian population, as well as in Ciuleni and Margau. This was a strategic measurement meant to discourage the revolters over the hills to encroach on the land of Calata during the market from Huedin (25 of November 1784). According to a memoir from that era, memoir that reflects the fear for the insurrection of the rascal rout, the Romanians from Calata, vengefully, began taking action and took back the land contribution.
Believable reports - is written in a document - and others auditions prove the fact that the rascal rout from here, especially the Romanian one, not only that it does not fear this bewilderment and the rebels, but it awaits for their arrival ardently. One of the arguments is that the carles from Calata, considered to be from Zlatna domain, had taken the contribution from the ruler by force when they said that they didn't pay the land contribution anymore... Many carles, most of them from Calata district, had decided, under the rose, not to listen to the sovereign any further and only because they feared the nobleness have they not revolted.
After the defeat of Horia's insurrection, the hopes for a social and national upturn are postponed again and the serfdom continues to follow the dark constitutions of Transylvania. But these hopes have relighted during the spring of the people from 1848. Over 120 heads of family from Calata assisted the revolution together with the highlanders from Abrud area, ruled by Avram Iancu. At 3 of January 1848, about 1000 Hungarian grenadiers got into Calata. They were stopped by the Romanians for a few hours, until the women and children were withdrawing, with the cattle and some food. The Romanians were under the necessity of retreating and the assailants set the village on fire. Their effort of attacking the village Calatele, at 2 of February 1849, was rejected by the Romanians. For the contribution to the revolt, the Hungarian insurgents had set on fire the entire village Calata, including the orthodox church, that had burnt almost completely.
The 19th century may be considered a tragical century for the life of the village Calatele, because of the frequent epidemic diseases that haunted the locality and that killed hundreds of lives, mostly children, but the youth and the aged as well. An epidemic like this was in 1815, when only in the first half of the year died 49 people, an unbeaten number back then. The cause of death is unknown since it was not mentioned in the parochial registry book. The contagion had entrapped the priest as well, who died at 29 of July of that year. Hence the deceased had not been written in the registry book from that moment on, otherwise their number would have been much larger.
After the Austro-Hungarian dualism, the social and political conditions from 1867, when the Hungarian chauvinism was a political method, determined the Romanians to face these realities. The great political movement, Memorandum 1892-1894, came over Calata area also.
In 1914 the worldwide conflagration blazed up, with its tragical exequies. Many Transylvanian soldiers were killed on the Galician front and the Russian front, in the first phase of the war and, later, on the Italian front or on other fronts where the Austro-Hungarian army was implied. The names of the soldiers from Calata fallen during the World War I, are immortalized by the worthy inhabitants of Calata, on a monument in front of the holy church, in the middle of the village.
But the worldwide conflagration also meant the decomposition of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the opportunity, for the Romanians from Transylvania, to make their dream come true, that is to unite with the Mother-Country.
After 20 years of peace, democracy and a certain economical, social and political development, another worldwide conflagration descended upon the country. Marked out arbitrarily, the border was passing exactly through Calata, the part from Sancrai, village that was given to Hungary. In September 1944, during a potshot of the Hungarian soldiers, at the border, had fallen some peaceful inhabitants of Calata. At this juncture many inhabitants had taken refuge in the neighboring villages, like they did in 1848.
The ascension of the communism in the villages of Calatele township did encounter some difficulties. Some peasants used the wave to reach the power and to bring the world on the right path. But they did not escape the comrades' vigilance.