THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (UK)
Sunday 22 April 2001

ST - Rise and fall of Yugoslavia

By Susan Bisset

December 1918: Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes formed after break-up of Austro-Hungarian empire.

1929: Renamed Yugoslavia (Land of the Southern Slavs).

1941: German and Italian forces invade; government and royal family forced into exile.

1945: Communist partisans of Josip Broz (nicknamed Tito) victorious after defeating the royalist Chetniks.

1980: Tito dies. Tensions between republics flare as nationalism grows.

1987: Slobodan Milosevic becomes Serbia's communist leader and (in 1990) president; he vows to crush ethnic Albanian nationalism in southern Serbian province of Kosovo.

May 1991: Slovenia and Croatia declare independence.

July 1991: Slovenia gains independence after 10-day war.

1991-1992: War in Croatia.

1991: Referendum in Macedonia opts for independence.

1992-95: Serb, Muslim and Croat forces clash in Bosnia-Hercegovina war. An estimated 200,000 killed.

1995: Dayton peace accord ends Bosnian war; Yugoslavia reduced to two republics: Serbia and Montenegro.

1997: Milosevic switches from Serbian to Yugoslavian president.

1998-99: Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian insurgents in Kosovo. War breaks out between Serbs and rebels.

March-June 1999: Nato bombing campaign. Ends when Serbs agree to withdraw from Kosovo. Nato's peacekeeping force, Kfor, arrives.

October 2000: Milosevic overthrown in a popular uprising after losing election but refusing to quit.