History of Croatia

[7] Greek colonization saw settlers establish communities on of Issa (Vis), Korkyra Melaina (Korčula) and Pharos (Starigrad on Hvar) islands[8] as well as trading outposts of Tragurion (Trogir) and Epetion (Stobreč).

[15] After the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, with the beginning of the Migration Period, Julius Nepos briefly ruled his diminished domain from Diocletian's Palace after his 476 flight from Italy.

[19] According to the work De Administrando Imperio, written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Croats arrived in what is today Croatia from southern Poland and Western Ukraine in the early 7th century.

After assembling his army king marched by so-called "via exercitualis" (English: the military road) from Hungary proper southwards to Koprivnica and further towards: Križevci, Zagreb, Topusko, Bihać and then Knin, eventually reaching town of Split on the Adriatic coast.

[65] Historian Krešimir Kužić attributes this low desire of Croatians to join king Andrew's crusade to earlier bad memories related to destruction and looting of Zadar in 1202.

[69] Eventually hand-to-hand combat ensued inside the fortress, but upon realising that king isn't in Klis, the Mongols abandoned their attempts to take the fort and headed towards Trogir.

Following downfall of Croatian magnates and restoration of royal authority over Croatia, around 1350, first instance of Croatian-Dalmatian Assembly (hrvatski Sabor), attested by historical sources, took place near Benkovac.

[86] Another long term consequence of Anti-Court struggles was arrival of Ottomans to neighbouring Kingdom of Bosnia at the invite of powerful Bosnian duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić to help him fight against forces of king Sigismund.

These "scorched earth" tactics, also called "The Small War", were usually conducted once a year with intention to soften up the region's defenses, but didn't result in actual conquest of territory.

Meanwhile, after king Mathias Corvinus died in 1490, a succession war ensued, where supporters of Vladislaus Jagiellon prevailed over those of Maximilian Habsburg, another contester to the throne of Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia.

[101] At the same time, ongoing Ottoman attacks on Croatia, coupled with famines, diseases, and a cold climate, led to widespread depopulation and a refugee crisis as people fled to safer areas.

In the Croatian theater of operations, several commanders distinguished themselves, including friar Luka Ibrišimović, whose rebels defeated the Ottomans in Požega, and Marko Mesić, who led the anti-Ottoman uprising in Lika.

Since the emperor Charles VI had no male heirs, he wanted to leave the imperial throne to his daughter Maria Theresa of Austria, which eventually led to the War of Austrian Succession of 1741–1748.

[127] With the Treaty of Sistova, which ended the Austro-Turkish War (1788–1791), the Ottoman-held areas of Donji Lapac and Cetingrad, along with the villages of Drežnik Grad and Jasenovac, were ceded to the Habsburg monarchy and incorporated into the Croatian Military Frontier.

The manifesto called for the unification of Croatia with Slavonia, Dalmatia, Rijeka, the Military Frontier, Bosnia, and Slovene lands into a single unit inside the Hungarian part of the Austrian Empire.

During a session of the Croatian Sabor held on 25 March 1848, colonel Josip Jelačić was elected as Ban of Croatia, and a petition called "Demands of The People" (Zahtjevanja naroda) was drafted to be handed over to the Austrian Emperor.

[citation needed] In 1873, the territory of Military Frontier was demilitarized and in July 1871 a decision was made to incorporate it into Croatia[141] with Croatian ban Ladislav Pejačević taking over the authority.

Late in the war, there were proposals to transform the dualist monarchy into a federalist one, with a separate Croatian/South Slavic section, however, these plans were never carried out, due to Woodrow Wilson's announcement of a policy of self-determination for peoples of Austria-Hungary.

A solution was sought through unification with the Kingdom of Serbia, which had an army capable of confronting the Italians as well as the international legitimacy among the members of the Entente Cordiale, which was about to carve new European borders at the Paris Peace Conference.

[148] Pašić believed that Yugoslavia should be as centralized as possible, creating a Greater Serbian national concept of concentrated power in the hands of Belgrade in place of distinct regional governments and identities.

In 1934, King Aleksandar was assassinated during a state visit to Marseille by a coalition of the Ustaše and the Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), thus ending the Royal dictatorship.

The government of Serbian Radical Milan Stojadinović, which took power in 1935, distanced Yugoslavia from its former allies of France and the United Kingdom and moved the country closer to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

The Axis occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941 allowed the Croatian radical right Ustaše to come into power, forming the "Independent State of Croatia" (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), led by Ante Pavelić, who assumed the role of Poglavnik.

[160] The anti-fascist communist-led Partisan movement, based on a pan-Yugoslav ideology, emerged in early 1941 under the command of Croatian-born Josip Broz Tito, and spread quickly into many parts of Yugoslavia.

By 1943, the Partisan resistance movement had gained the upper hand and in 1945, with help from the Soviet Red Army (passing only through small parts such as Vojvodina), expelled the Axis forces and local supporters.

In reality, the housing was inferior with poor heat and plumbing, the medical care often lacking even in the availability of antibiotics, schools were propaganda machines and travel was a necessity to provide the country with hard currency.

The propagandists, who want people to believe "neutral policies" equalized Serbs and Croats, severely restricted free speech and did not protect citizens from ethnic attacks.

With the climate of change throughout Eastern Europe during the 1980s, the communist hegemony was challenged (at the same time, the Milošević government began to gradually concentrate Yugoslav power in Serbia, and calls for free multi-party elections were becoming louder).

On Easter Sunday, 31 March 1991, the first fatal clashes occurred when police from the Croatian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) entered the Plitvice Lakes National Park to expel rebel Serb forces.

The majority of the Serbs who fled from former Krajina did not return due to fears of ethnic violence, discrimination, and property repossession problems; and the Croatian government has yet to achieve the conditions for full reintegration.