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The city of Prizren, in Kosovo, photographed in 1922.
Kosovo is a Jamaica-sized country in the heart of the Balkans that has long been riven by ethnic, religious, and linguistic rivalries.
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
Serbian policemen watch ethnic Albanians during a protest in Pec, now Peje, in 1998.
By the mid-20th century, Kosovo was an autonomous region of mostly Albanian-speaking Muslims, a minority in the rest of Yugoslavia. But tensions rose between ethnic Albanians calling for more political representation within Yugoslavia and Kosovo's ethnic Serbs, who feared increasing marginalization on what they saw as sacred Serbian land.
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Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic bows to the Serbian flag during a ceremony at Belgrade's Monument To The Unknown Soldier in 1996.
After Serbian socialist Slobodan Milosevic rose to power in the 1980s, he tossed gunpowder on the smoldering fire of nationalism. In 1989, he met with Serbs inside Kosovo who complained of oppression from the Albanian majority. Outside the meeting, violence broke out between Serbs and ethnic Albanian police. Milosevic then marched outside and promised the angry crowd that "no one will beat you again." He then imposed direct control over Kosovo and installed Serb police in the region.
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KLA fighters guarding a railway in the village of Terde, west of Pristina.
In 1991, after years of more measured resistance to conditions imposed by Belgrade, ethnic Albanians inside Kosovo formed a network of militants called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) who sought to join Kosovo with a "greater Albania."
Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
Serb police run into position after gunfire rang out near their checkpoint in the village of Kriljevo in 1998.
In the summer of 1998, KLA fighters killed dozens of Serb police and civilians. Yugoslav-backed authorities responded by rolling on villages with armored vehicles and driving ethnic Albanians from their homes and setting houses ablaze.
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A line of coffins draped in the Albanian flag streams through a crowd of more than 10,000 mourners in Racak.
In January 1999, after KLA fighters killed four Serbs in an attack on a police post, Yugoslav government forces cordoned off the nearby village of Racak. When international observers were able to enter, they found the aftermath of a massacre: 45 ethnic Albanian civilians dead, including women and a child.
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Kosovar Albanians cross the border into Albania in early 1999.
As media attention focused on the spiraling violence and streams of refugees, pressure mounted for international intervention. NATO then bypassed the United Nations to authorize air strikes unless Milosevic agreed to get "Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back [to Kosovo]." Milosevic refused the terms, and on March 24, 1999, NATO planes heavy with missiles took off from an Italian air base and banked toward rump Yugoslavia.
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A man leads his daughter away from destroyed buildings after NATO air strikes hammered the center of Pristina, the Kosovo capital.
The first missiles smashed into infrastructure linked to the Milosevic government.
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Belgrade’s Usce Tower, home of the Communist headquarters, ablaze after it was hit with multiple missiles on April 21. The building was later rebuilt with a 36-meter extension.
Air strikes were predicted to bring Milosevic to the negotiating table within a few days, but an outraged public rallied behind Milosevic. Simultaneously, the conflict in Kosovo ramped up as Serb security forces moved through Kosovar villages on a spree of ethnic cleansing.
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Yugoslav soldiers look at the wreckage of a bridge hit by 10 NATO missiles in the village of Murino, in what is now Montenegro. Six locals, including three children, were killed during the attack.
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The main bridge over the Danube in the city of Novi Sad, in what is now Serbia, lies broken after NATO bombardment in April 1999.
Darki Dozet
People crossing the Danube in Novi Sad after three of the city’s bridges were destroyed by NATO missiles.
As civilian casualties mounted and the violence in Kosovo raged on, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told U.S. President Bill Clinton that NATO was "losing the propaganda battle...big-time."
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The smoldering wreckage of a passenger train after being hit by two missiles launched from a NATO F-15. According to NATO, the jet had been targeting the bridge but both missiles struck the train. At least 20 commuters were killed.
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The aftermath of a missile strike that gutted the government-run studios of Radio Television Serbia (RTS) in Belgrade. Sixteen people died amid the rubble.
Finally, in June 1999, after some 500 civilians had been killed in air strikes, Milosevic agreed to allow international troops into Kosovo.
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U.S. troops receive a rapturous welcome as they roll into the Kosovar town of Gjilan.
As the peacekeepers and Albanian refugees moved into the region, Serb police and civilians frequently moved out.
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Young Kosovar Albanians make obscene gestures at a busload of Serb police as they are bused out of the Kosovo region.
Djordje Kojadinovic/AFP
A scene from in front of the Serbian parliament during the “Bulldozer Revolution” that led to Milosevic standing down.
In October 2000, with UN indictments for war crimes and crimes against humanity already issued for his actions in Kosovo, Slobodan Milosevic was toppled amid violent demonstrations. Soon afterward, he was extradited to The Hague, where he died in 2006 while still on trial.
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Ethnic Albanians (foreground) and Serbs in a face-off across the river that bisects the ethnically divided city of Mitrovice in February 2000. Today the town remains roughly half Albanian and half Serb.
In 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Its sovereignty has been recognized by 110 countries, while 77 other states have opposed the declaration. Around 4,000 NATO troops are still in Kosovo.