Kosovo has been one of the most fought over areas of the Balkans since the Slavs colonized the region in the 600s AD. In 1389, in the Battle of Kosovo, the Turks (Ottomans) defeated the Serbs in a pitched battle on the Kosovo plains. In the years that followed, the Serbs left, and the Muslim Turks moved in. The neighboring Albanians achieved leniency under the Turks by converting to Islam themselves. In the mid-1700s, the Albanians moved into Muslim-controlled Kosovo. Immediately, they oppressed the Serb minority, re-igniting an old rivalry. It escalated in 1981. In a ten year period, 1981-1991, Serbs were raped, poisoned, and generally harassed by the Albanians. One hundred and thirty-five thousand Serbs fled the Albanians and Kosovo. Under Yugoslav President and radical Serb Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbs struck back as the 1990s rolled around. Autonomy was repealed from Kosovo, and the Albanians were shackled with new laws that favored Serbs. The Albanins militarized as a response, forming the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). As a response to the guerillas who were threatening to break up Yugoslavia even further, the Yugoslav 3rd Army was ordered into the area to put down the KLA. Accompanying the 3rd Army were various Serb paramilitaries, under the infamous Serb "Arkan", who was guilty of war crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina. As the fighting deepened, 45,000 Albanians fled the province. Alarmed, and fearing another Bosnia, the UN, then NATO, intervened and tried to advance diplomacy, but in vain. On March 24,1999, NATO, led by the US and Great Britain, began bombing the Yugoslav forces. In response, the msot vicious "ethnic cleansing", the term used by NATO for deliberate attacks on an ethnic group, began. Eventually, the entire Albanian population of Kosovo was displaced. 800,000 fled the provicne into neighboring countries, while another 800,000 were internally displaced in the province.

1. Medieval and Ottoman Kosovo, 850s-1914
2. Yugoslav Kosovo, 1918-1981
3. The Serb Exodus from Yugoslav Kosovo, 1981-1991
4. The Serb Reprisals, and
Fleeing of the Albanians,1989-1999
5. The War Between Yugoslavia and NATO,1999
6. The United Nations Peacekeeping, June 1999-Present
Sites of Serb massacres of Albanians, 1999