The first country to gain independence from Yugoslavia was Slovenia in 1991 after only a short 'war'. Croatia declared independence in 1991 as well, but the Croatian war of Independence lasted 4 years.
Macedonia became the only former republic to gain sovereignty without resistance from Yugoslav forces. It declared independence in September of 1991
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, however due to the friction between Bosnians, Croatians and Serbians a war started. There is much to be said about this war, so I do encourage anyone to look into it, but in general it wasn't a nice time...
Regardless the war ended with the Dayton Agreement in 1995.
The next country to gain independence was Montenegro in 2006.
Finally Kosovo gained independence in 2008. Tension was always high and the growing Albanian nationalism increased this tension between the Serbs and Albanians. After Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian independence Slobodan Milošević was promoted to the presidency of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
The Kosovo Liberation Front was an organisation which started armed attacks on Serbian forces. Fights began over territories between the KLA and Serbian forces (I don't know much about these, so I'll leave it at that).
In March 1999 it was announced that peace talks had failed and the matter was handed over to NATO for military action. The operation went bad at first and Milošević resisted and the ethnic cleansing of Serbian forces escalated. Thousands of Kosovo Albainians had been expelled from their homes in terrible conditions. NATO military operations switched increasingly to attacking Yugoslav units on the ground, hitting targets as small as individual tanks and artillery pieces, as well as continuing with the strategic bombardment. NATO's bombing campaign lasted from March 24 to June 11, 1999, involving up to 1,000 aircraft operating mainly from bases in Italy and aircraft carriers stationed in the Adriatic. Tomahawk cruise missiles were also extensively used, fired from aircraft, ships, and submarines. All of the NATO members were involved to some degree—with the exception of Greece. Over the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions. For the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), it was the second time it had participated in a conflict since World War II after the Bosnian War.
By the start of April, the conflict seemed little closer to a resolution and NATO countries began to think seriously about a ground operation—an invasion of Kosovo.At the same time, Finnish and Russian diplomatic negotiators continued to try to persuade Milošević to back down.
Milošević finally recognised that NATO was serious in its resolve to end the conflict one way or another and that Russia would not intervene to defend Serbia despite Moscow's strong anti-NATO rhetoric. Faced with little alternative, Milošević accepted the conditions offered by a Finnish–Russian mediation team and agreed to a military presence within Kosovo headed by the UN, but incorporating NATO troops.
Within three weeks, over 500,000 Albanian refugees had returned home. By November 1999, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 848,100 out of 1,108,913 had returned.
During the war, 90,000 Serbs fled from Kosovo. The Yugoslav Red Cross had also registered 247,391 mostly Serbian refugees by November. The persistent anti-Serb attacks and riots, including against other non-Albanians, had remained in the anarchic stage until some form of order was established in 2001. This order disintegrated during the 2004 pogrom against non Albanians. More than 164,000 Serbs have left Kosovo during the seven weeks since Yugoslav and Serb forces withdrew and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered the province.
Obviously this just about covers the basics, but everything since the start of conflicts between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs till the end is filled with killings, war crimes and massacres which in the end called for international action. Kosovo now has partial international recognition and has control over most of its territory.
Thankfully the conflicts are now over and this terrible time can be left in the history books. Congratulations on independence!
P.S.
The translation of Montenegro is Black Mountain in English which sounds immensely awesome.
"It's a very nice!, I like!"
