Serbia

The Serbian Empire of Stefan Dušan — the Balkans' greatest medieval power

The Serbian Empire (1331–1371 CE) under Stefan Dušan the Mighty was the largest and most powerful state in the medieval Balkans — stretching from the Danube to the Aegean, Dušan proclaimed himself "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks," codified Serbian law, and came tantalizingly close to capturing Constantinople before his sudden death ended the empire's expansion.

Battle of Kosovo — the wound that never healed

The Battle of Kosovo (1389 CE) was the defining moment of Serbian national consciousness — a coalition of Balkan forces under Prince Lazar met the Ottoman army of Sultan Murad I on the Field of Blackbirds, and although both commanders died, the Ottomans won decisively, inaugurating five centuries of Ottoman rule over the Balkans that Serbs have never stopped mourning.

The Serbian uprisings — rebirth of a nation

The First and Second Serbian Uprisings (1804–1817 CE) against Ottoman rule were the founding events of the modern Serbian state — the first uprising under Karađorđe (Black George) was suppressed in a massacre; the second under Miloš Obrenović succeeded, establishing Serbian autonomy and inaugurating the Obrenović-Karađorđević dynastic rivalry that destabilised Serbia for a century.

The Balkan Wars — the Ottoman Empire's last days in Europe

The First and Second Balkan Wars (1912–1913 CE) expelled the Ottoman Empire from almost all of its European territory in less than a year — Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro formed an unlikely alliance that swept through Macedonia and Thrace, then immediately fought each other over the spoils, redrawing the map in ways that made World War I inevitable.

Sarajevo 1914 — the shot that started the world war

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 CE by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, triggered the chain of ultimatums, mobilisations, and declarations of war that became the First World War — the most consequential political assassination in history.

The Yugoslav Wars — the Balkans burn again

The Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001 CE) were the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II — the dissolution of Yugoslavia produced wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo with deliberate campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the Srebrenica genocide (8,000 Bosniak Muslim men killed in 1995), and NATO's first combat operation, the bombing of Serbia in 1999.