Yugoslavia+and+the+Balkans

=**YUGOSLAVIA and the BALKANS**= Hey, you are a good tech guy - I would have liked to see you play with this more, learn some of the widgets and add maps, pictures, etc. And focus more on the Balkan connection to the start of WWI, Yugoslavia in the Cold War. Location: -Balkans -Yugoslavia History: - Early European History until the mid-1800s - Mid-1800s until World War II - Cold War to 1991
 * Content Summary:**

**GEOGRAPHY good! **
Yugoslavia: Balkan Peninsula:
 * Yugoslavia was situated in the western part of the Balkan mountain range. It included the now-countries Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia and the disputed territory Kosovo.
 * The Balkan Peninsula, located on the Mediterranean Sea (Aegean and Ionian seas) and Marmara Sea to the south, Adriatic Sea to the west, and Black Sea to the east, consists of the Yugoslavian republics, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Romania, and parts of Italy and Turkey.

**EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY THROUGH AGE OF IMPERIALISM**

 * In early European history, the Balkan Peninsula was a crossroads between the Middle East and Christian Europe, so the Balkan Peninsula has a pretty diverse demography.
 * Until the end of the 1700s, the Ottoman Empire had full control over the Balkan Peninsula and led attacks against any non-Muslims there.
 * Because of the Ottoman wars in the Balkan region, the Peninsula became one of the most underdeveloped regions in Europe.
 * During the 1800s and 1900s, most Balkan states began to free themselves from Ottoman influence and declare independence, beginning with Serbia in 1817. Greece followed in 1827, while Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenegro came after in 1878.

**BALKAN WARS AND TWO WORLD WARS**

 * In 1912, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro allied forces to drive out the remaining Ottomans, causing the First Balkan War. In less than a year of fighting, the Ottomans were soundly defeated by the relatively new countries.
 * A few months later, Bulgaria turned on Serbia and Greece in an effort to gain more land that it thought was entitled to from the First Balkan War, sparking the Second Balkan War. Bulgaria was soundly defeated by Romanian and Greek forces.
 * In 1914, A Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Austria retaliated, starting World War I. The Balkans joined the Allied Powers while the Ottomans joined the central powers.
 * Because of an alliance with Germany, the Balkan states were dragged into World War II, this time on the losing side. After World War II, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina formed a new state called Yugoslavia.


 * COLD WAR**


 * Throughout the Cold War, the Balkan states (except for Greece) fell under Communist rule. All states except Yugoslavia, however, became SSRs.
 * In Greece, civil war broke out between the communists and the capitalists. This was the first time in the Cold War that the Truman Doctrine was put into effect.
 * In 1961, Albania fell out of the USSR. Instead of trying to connect with the West as Yugoslavia was doing, however, Albania became an isolationist state.
 * In 1980, political tensions in Yugoslavia began to crack the infrastructure. Constitutional crisis turned into cries of nationalism as republics like Serbia and Kosovo demanded independence.
 * In 1990, these tensions turned into what became known as the Yugoslav Wars that took place mainly between Serbia and Croatia as a fight for land. Yugoslavia officially fell apart with the declaration of Serbian independence in 1995.


 * SITES USED are there more??? needed 8 for the assignment. **

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