Bosnia and Herzegovina Mug

The lands of present day Bosnia and Herzegovina was first inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until it was conquered by the Romans. After the Roman Empire collapsed in the 4th century, Bosnia was passed on to the Byzantine Empire. Between the 6-7th century Slav tribes started settling in what are now Bosnia and Herzegovina and the surrounding lands. The kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia split control of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 9th and 10th century. The Bosnian Kingdom (1353-1463) was ruled mostly by Serbian kings. The Bosnian Kingdom reached its peak under the Serbian king Tvrtko Kotromanic (1338-1391). Between 1463-1483 Bosnia and Herzegovina was completely conquered by the Ottoman Empire and the last Bosnian king was beheaded. During 400 years of Ottoman rule the population of Bosnia kept on changing. War with the Ottomans and the Habsburgs normally caused more migration into Bosnia; the Serbian speaking Bosnian Muslims emerged mainly because allot of people converted to Islam and the large number of settlements of the Jews. By the 19th century the Ottoman Empire became weaker and this sparked Serbian revolts and uprising in 1875; this conflict involved other Balkan states and the involvement of European powers, which eventually forced the Ottomans to give Bosnia and Herzegovina to be administrated by Austria-Hungary in 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin, and ending four centuries of Ottoman rule. From 1878-1918 Bosnia and Herzegovina was being administrated and then was annexed directly to Austria-Hungary in 1908. Tensions between Serbia and Austria-Hungary were high over the issue of Bosnia and Herzegovina and who would get it. In June 1914 Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated by a Bosnian Serb, an event which triggered the First World War. After the First World War the Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated and Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, later renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. During the Second World War the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia in 1941 and Bosnia and Herzegovina were occupied by the Nazi puppet state of Croatia. After World War Two ended, Bosnia and Herzegovina became one of the six republics of Yugoslavia in 1945, when the country was re-organized as a communist federal state under Josip Broz Tito. By 1990, political, ethnic and religious tensions were high and the country headed towards a collapse. In March 1992 the Bosnian Muslims voted for independence even though most Bosnian Serbs boycotted the poll. After the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic announced a separate Bosnian Serb republic the fighting broke out a short while later. The Bosnian Serb forces were assisted by the Yugoslav army and the Croatian army did the same for the Bosnian Croats. By 1993 all three forces (Serb, Croats and Muslims) were fighting each other; each side took their own policy of ethnic cleansing. The Bosnian War went on from 1992-1995 and costed around one hundred thousand lives. The War was going on through most of 1995 until October when all sides agreed to a truce. All three leaders Milosevic, Izetbegovic and Tudjman signed the Dayton Accords which was an agreement to end the war in former Yugoslavia. The Dayton Accords was the peace plan signed in November 1995 which gave 51% of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Bosnian Serbs.