* 1945 – Osijek, Croatia, is liberated from fascist occupation.

* 1941 – World War II: The Axis Powers in Europe establish the Independent State of Croatia from occupied Yugoslavia with Ante Pavelić's Ustaše fascist insurgents in power.

The Capone family immigrated to the United States, first immigrating from Italy to Rijeka, Croatia in 1893, traveling on a ship to the U. S and finally settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn.

The Russian Gazprom company planned a gas pipeline from Dimitrovgrad in eastern Bulgaria across Serbia, reaching the Adriatic Sea in Croatia.

The sport is also very popular on the eastern side of the Adriatic, especially in Slovenia ( where it is known as balinanje or colloquial playing boče or bale from Italian bocce or palle meaning balls ), Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Hercegovina ( in Serbo-Croatian known under the name of boćanje or simply playing boće ( colloquial also bućanje or playing balote ), originating in Italian boccie ).

Tomislav was the first ruler of Croatia who was styled a king in a letter from the Pope John X, dating kingdom of Croatia to year 925.

In 1490 the estates of Croatia declined to recognize Vladislaus II until he had taken oath to respect their liberties, and insisted upon his erasing from the diploma certain phrases which seemed to reduce Croatia to the rank of a mere province.

Later in the same century, Croatia was so weak that its parliament authorized Ferdinand Habsburg to carve out large areas of Croatia and Slavonia adjacent to the Ottoman Empire for the creation of the Military Frontier ( Vojna Krajina, German Militaergrenze ) which would be ruled directly from Vienna's military headquarters.

Following the defeat of the Independent State of Croatia at the end of the war, a large number of Ustaše, and civilians supporting them ( ranging from sympathisers, young conscripts, anti-communists, and ordinary serfs who were allegedly motivated by Partisan crimes ) attempted to flee in the direction of Austria hoping to surrender to British forces and to be given refuge.

By the same time, the Croatian Adriatic coast had taken shape as an internationally popular tourist destination, all coastal republics ( but mostly SR Croatia ) profited greatly from this, as tourist numbers reached levels still unsurpassed in modern Croatia.

The crisis in Kosovo and, in 1986, the emergence of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia provoked a very negative reaction in Croatia and Slovenia ; politicians from both republics feared that his motives would threaten their republics ' autonomy.

Their position was that if Croatia could secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs could secede from Croatia.

On 17 August 1990, the Serbs began what became known as the Log Revolution, where barricades of logs were placed across roads throughout the South as an expression of their secession from Croatia.

This effectively cut Croatia in two, separating the coastal region of Dalmatia from the rest of the country.

On 25 June 1991 the Parliament of Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia.

Clockwise from top left: The central street of Dubrovnik, the Stradun ( street ) | Stradun, in ruins during the Siege of Dubrovnik ; the damaged Vukovar water tower, a symbol of the early conflict, flying the Flag of Croatia | Croatian tricolour ; soldiers of the Croatian Army getting ready to destroy a Republic of Serbian Krajina | Serbian tank ; the Vukovar Memorial Cemetery ; a Serbian T-55 tank destroyed on the road to Drniš

The Yugoslav People's Army retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina where a new cycle of tensions were escalating: the Bosnian War was to start.

During 1992 and 1993, Croatia also handled an estimated 700, 000 refugees from Bosnia, mainly Bosnian Muslims.

In the 11th – 12th century, the region was part of the Kingdom of Croatia ; from the 13th to 16th century part of the Kingdom of Hungary ; and in 16th – 17th century part of the Ottoman Empire.

According to medieval Kievan sources, until the 10th century the territory had been part of White Croatia and later under the Kievan Rus ', and in 12th to early 14th century, Kingdom of Galicia – Volhynia included parts of the region.

By joining the Hungarian state in the 12th century, Croatia lost its independence, but it did not lose its ties with the south and the west, and instead this ensured the beginning of a new era of Central European cultural influence.

The principality was annexed to the Kingdom of Croatia in the 12th century, and was conquered by the Republic of Venice a century later.

** Grand Prix from 12th World Festival of Animated Films in Zagreb, Croatia 1996

In the early 12th century, the area was part of the disputed border region between the Windic March and the March of Carniola, established by the Holy Roman Empire in the northwest, and the Hungarian crown lands in the Kingdom of Croatia in the southeast.

According to Daniel Power Croatia became part of Hungary in the late 11th and early 12th century.

Croatia first appeared as a duchy in the 7th century and then as a kingdom in the 10th century.

After being incorporated in Yugoslavia for most of the 20th century, Croatia regained independence in 1991.

According to the work De Administrando Imperio written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Croats had arrived in what is today Croatia in the early 7th century, however that claim is disputed and competing hypotheses date the event between the 6th and the 9th centuries.

Croatian romantic nationalism emerged in mid-19th century to counteract the apparent Germanization and Magyarization of Croatia.

After Srijem left Croatia and Slavonia and joined Serbia together with Vojvodina, which was shortly followed by a referendum to join Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia, the People's Council ( Narodno vijeće ) of the state, guided by what was by that time a half a century long tradition of pan-Slavism and without sanction of the Croatian sabor, joined the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

It has been conjectured that the name glagolitsa developed in Croatia around the 14th century and was derived from the word glagolity, applied to adherents of the liturgy in Slavonic.

Only in Croatia the Glagolitic alphabet was used until 19th century.

Another source of competition in the spice trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth century was the Ragusans from the maritime republic of Dubrovnik in southern Croatia.

In the late 10th century, the Bulgarian armies conquered the Serb principality of Duklja and led campaigns against the Kingdoms of Croatia and Hungary.

Prince Nikola III Zrinski thaler minted in Gvozdansko castle, Kingdom of Croatia ( Habsburg ) | Croatia, in the early 16th century ( until 1534 )

The 11th century Crown of Zvonimir was a Papal gift to King Zvonimir of Croatia.

In Trogir ( the ancient Roman Tragurium ), Croatia, in the Convent of the Benedictine Nuns, was displayed a marble bas-relief of Kairos from the 3rd century B. C., as a young man, running.

After the fall of Rome, which ruled the area of modern-day Slavonia until the 5th century, Ostrogoths and Lombards controlled the area before the arrival of Avars and Slavs, when the Pannonian Croatia was established in the 7th century.

According to the work De Administrando Imperio written by the 10th century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Croats had arrived in the early 7th century in what is now Croatia, although this is disputed and competing hypotheses date the event between the 6th and the 9th centuries.

In 1809, Osijek was granted the title of a Free Royal City and during the early 19th century it was the largest city in Croatia.

In the 9th century the region was part of the Slavic Balaton Principality ruled by prince Pribina, part of the Principality of Pannonian Croatia ruled by prince Ljudevit, and part of the Bulgarian Empire.