Bosnia was part of the Roman Empire during the first centuries of the Christian era. After the fall of Rome by the 7th century AD, Bosnia was settled by Slavs, The 9th century saw the establishment of two neighboring kingdoms: Serbia (southeast of Bosnia), and Croatia (in the west). In the 11th-12th centuries, Bosnia was under the authority of the Kings of Hungary. Around 1200 A.D., Bosnia gained its independence. The independent medieval Kingdom of Bosnia endured for more than 260 years. Its population was entirely Christian,. By 1389 Serbia had suffered defeat at the hands of the Turks (at the battle of Kosovo) and had been reduced to the status of an Ottoman vassal. Bosnia managed to retain its independence until 1463, when it also succumbed to the Turks.

 Bosnia's Ottoman centuries came to an abrupt end at Berlin in 1878, when Ottoman finances were entrusted to an international commission composed of it's creditors and Bosnia-Herzegovina was administered by Austria-Hungary. The nationalist dream of a South Slav state united under the leadership of Orthodox Serbia was eagerly promoted from across the border covertly financed by imperial Russia In the summer of 1914, a Serb nationalist youth named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne during a state visit to Sarajevo. The ensuing World War 1 killed millions throughout Europe.

Interwar Yugoslavia (1918-1941) When the war ended in 1918 Serbia's ruler was crowned King of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, of the newly-created greater South Slav state that was renamed Yugoslavia.When Yugoslavia's king was assassinated by an anti-Serb extremist during a state visit to France, a new crackdown followed., Tito's Communist Partisans emerged at the end of the World War 2 as the masters of Yugoslavia. They marked their victory with mass executions of tens of thousands of Croat and Slovene militiamen who had surrendered to them at the conclusion of hostilities. Tito awarded himself the title of Marshal and ruled Yugoslavia as a dictatorship for 35 years. When rumors of Tito's impending death in the 1970s sparked fears of Soviet intervention, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared that the United States viewed Yugoslavia as vital to its national interest and would risk nuclear war in ts defense.

  The end of the Cold War heralded the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia- In 1989, Miloshevich initiated a crackdown on Serbia's ethnic Albanians, who form the majority (90%) of the population in the country's southern autonomous province of Kosovo. Kosovo was the seat of a Serbian kingdom in the Middle Ages and the site of the famous battle, fought in 1389, that ended medieval Serbia's independence and began its centuries of subjection to the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Following international recognition of Croatian and Slovene independence (January 1992) , the elected government of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence in late February 1992.By April 7, 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina's independence had been officially recognized by the United States and by most European countries. On May 22, 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina was admitted as a full member of the United Nations.

Population 4,365,000 - over 95% of the people speak Bosnian or Serbo-Croatian. Bosnians whose ancestors were of the Catholic faith are now identified as Bosnian Croats (17%), while those of Eastern Orthodox background are now identified as Bosnian Serbs (31%). The largest group of the Bosnian population, however, are the Muslim Slavs (44% in the 1991 census), descendants of Christian Bosnians who accepted Islam some 500 years ago. Religions: Muslim 40%, Orthodox 31%, Roman Catholic 15%, Protestant 4%, other 10%