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Belgrade ( Serbian, Београд, Beograd), (population in Belgrade region 1,711,800 by census of 2002) is the capital of Serbia (since 1403) and Serbia and Montenegro (since 2003) and Yugoslavia ( 1918- 2003). The city lies on the outfall of the Sava river to the Danube river in northern central Serbia, at 44.83° North, 20.50° East ( The World Gazetteer)
For a quick overview of its history see Timeline of Belgrade
Where the Vinca culture existed and dominated the Balkans about 8000 years ago, Belgrade counts as the one of the oldest European and maybe world cities. Settled in the 3rd century BC4th century BC 3rd century BC 2nd century BC other centuries) ( 2nd millennium BC 1st millennium BC 1st millennium AD) Events The first two Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome over dominance in western Mediterranean Rome conquers Spain Great Wall of Chin by the Celtic before becoming the Roman60 and 400 with major cities. During this time only Dacia and Mesopotamia were added to the Empire but were lost before 300. The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman state in the centuries following its reorganization under t settlement of SingidunumUntil the Modern Era, Latin was the common language for scholarship and mapmaking. During the 19th and 20th centuries, German scholars in particular have made significant contributions to the study of historical place names, or Ortsnamenkunde''. These stu, the site passed to the Eastern Roman or ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was the eastern section of the Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which remained in existence after the fall of Rome in the 5th century. The Byzantine period is usually consider Empire. Singidunum experienced occupation by successive invaders of the region - HunsMany historians consider the Huns (meaning "person" in mongolian language) the first Turkic people mentioned in European history. References in Chinese sources to peoples called the Xiong-Nu (Hsiung-nu) go back to 1200 BC. Their Xiong rulers, first mentio, SarmatiansSarmatians Sarmatae or Sauromatae (the second form is mostly used by the earlier Greek writers, the other by the later Greeks and the Romans) were a people whom Herodotus (4. 21-117) in the 5th century BC put on the eastern boundary of Scythia beyond the, Ostrogoths and Avars - before the arrival of the Serbs around 630 AD. In 878 the city was renamed Beligrad ("white fortress" or "white town") under the rule of the Bulgarian kingdom. It passed again through Byzantine and Bulgarian rule before emerging as a city of the medieval Serbian kingdom.
The first Serbian king to rule Belgrade was Dragutin ( 1276- 1282), who received it as a present from the Hungarian king.
Subsequently occupied by Hungary and in 1521 captured by the Ottoman Turks, Belgrade remained under Ottoman rule for nearly three centuries. Thrice occupied by Austria ( 1688- 1690, 1717- 1739, 1789- 1791), the city was briefly held ( 1806- 1813) by Serbian forces during the first national uprising against Ottoman rule, and in 1817 became the capital of an autonomous principality of Serbia (except in the period from 1818- 1839, when Kragujevac was the country's capital city).
With the departure of its Turkish garrison ( 1867) and Serbia's full independence ( 1878) and elevation to a kingdom ( 1882), Belgrade became a key city of the Balkans. But despite the opening of a railway to Niš, Serbia's second city, conditions in Serbia as a whole remained those of an overwhelmingly agrarian country, and in 1900 the capital had only 69,000 inhabitants.
After occupation by Austro-Hungarian and German troops in 1915-1918 during World War I, Belgrade experienced faster growth and significant modernisation as the capital of the new kingdom of Yugoslavia during the 1920s and 1930s, growing in population to 239,000 by 1931 with the incorporation of the northern suburb of Zemun, formerly on the Austro-Hungarian bank of the river.
On April 6, 1941, Belgrade was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe (killing thousands of people) and Yugoslavia was invaded by German, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces. City remained under German occupation until October 20, 1944, when it was liberated by Yugoslav Partisan forces and the Red Army. In the post-war period Belgrade grew rapidly as the capital of the renewed Yugoslavia, developing as a major industrial centre. Sarajevo was a short period of time considered as a candidate for the capital.
In March 1972, Belgrade was at the centre of the last major outbreak of smallpox in Europe. The epidemic, which was contained with enforced quarantine and mass vaccination, was over by late May. See: 1972 outbreak of smallpox in Yugoslavia.
On March 9, 1991 massive demonstrations were held against Slobodan Milosevic in the city. Two people were killed and tanks were deployed in the streets in order to restore order.
After elections in 2000 Belgrade was the site of major demonstrations which caused the ousting of president Slobodan Miloševic.
Belgrade was bombed by NATO aviation during the Kosovo War in 1999 which caused substantial damage. Among bombed sites were the ministeries of defense, interior and finance, the presidential residency, few television and radio broadcasting stations ("Pink", "Kosava", "Radio S", "ELMAG") including National Television (Radio Television of Serbia) killing 17 technicians, hospital "Dragisa Misovic", private houses in "Zvezdara" comunity, Socialist Party headquarters, a hotel "Jugoslavija" and the Chinese embassy. The NATO officials claimed that the latter was bombed because NATO planners used outdated maps.
Belgrade was under some form of attack some 54 times since 1 A.D., or every 37 years on average. This means that, statistically, every citizen of Belgrade has seen two attacks on the city in his/her life.
Zoran Djindjic was the first elected mayor of Belgrade. Current mayor is Nenad Bogdanovic.