December 1990 — Slobodan Milosevic is elected president of Serbia in the country's first multi-party elections in over four decades.
June 1991 — The former Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and its semiautonomous provinces, begins to disintegrate as Croatia and Slovenia proclaim independence.
April 1992 — Serbia and Montenegro form the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
November 1995 — The U.S.-mediated Dayton peace agreement between Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia ends the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that had raged since 1992, killing around 100,000 people.
July 1997 — Milosevic is elected president of Yugoslavia by the federal parliament after stepping down as Serbian president.
December 1997 — Milan Milutinovic, an ally of Milosevic, becomes president of Serbia in elections marked by allegations of widespread fraud. In addition to flawed voter registration and the state media's biased coverage, election observers estimate that over a half million votes were stolen.
October 1998 — The worsening situation in the province of Kosovo leads to a new information law imposing rigid constraints on independent media. The law allows private citizens or organizations to sue media outlets for publishing items deemed unpatriotic or that fail to obtain the consent of subjects. Violations of the new law are punishable by exorbitant fines. The government also bans the rebroadcast of news programs from such foreign media outlets as the BBC and Voice of America. NATO air strikes in Kosovo and Serbia the following March lead to even tighter media restrictions.
May 1999 — The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established by the U.N. Security Council in 1993, indicts Milosevic for war crimes committed in Kosovo.
July 1999 — Television reporter Ivan Novkovic is arrested after revealing allegations of corruption against a regional official. Several thousand protesters who gather at the police station to demand his release are beaten and tear-gassed.
June 2000 — Opposition leader Vuk Draskovic accuses President Milosevic of ordering a gun attack in Montenegro that leaves him slightly wounded, marking what he claims is the second attempt on his life in less than a year.
July 2000 — Parliament votes to amend the constitution to allow President Milosevic to run for another term.
September 2000 — Several foreign journalists are expelled from the country prior to the first general elections conducted by popular vote. Milosevic loses the presidential vote to opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica, but a second round is called because neither candidate wins a majority. Believing the electoral process tainted by fraud, the opposition stages massive rallies that eventually force Milosevic to concede defeat and step down.
February 2001 — Police begin investigating allegations that Milosevic enriched himself through the sale of state gold. He is arrested in April and charged with abuse of office and misuse of state funds.
June 2001 — Facing considerable international pressure, the government remands Milosevic over to The Hague to face charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia.
March 2002 — Montenegrin, Yugoslav and Serbian leaders sign a European Union-mediated accord to set up a new state called Serbia and Montenegro.
December 2002 — Serbia ratifies the Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, which enters into force the following April.
January 2003 — Serbian and Montenegrin parliaments approve a constitutional charter that allows either republic to hold a referendum on independence after three years.
March 2003 — The joint parliament of Serbia and Montenegro chooses Svetozar Marovic, deputy chairman of the Democratic Party of Socialists, to be president.
March 2003 — Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic is assassinated in Belgrade. Parliament appoints Zoran Zivkovic, a top official in the Democratic Party (DS), as the new prime minister. Zivkovic vows to continue Djindjic's initiatives to fight organized crime, reform the economy and draft a new constitution.
March 2003 — Mirjana Markovic, the wife of Slobodan Milosevic, and ten other Milosevic-era officials are charged with mismanaging state property. She later flees to Russia.
December 2003 — Serbia and Montenegro sign the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Ratification follows in December 2005.
June 2004 — DS leader Boris Tadic, a pro-Western reformer, is elected president. Tadic vows to bring Serbia into the EU and develop a new constitution for the country.
April 2005 — Serbia and Montenegro sign the Civil Law Convention on Corruption, followed the next month by the Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism.
February 2006 — Criminal charges are filed against business tycoon Bogoljub Karic, who is accused of embezzling 1.3 billion dinar (US$20million) in state funds while head of the country's biggest mobile phone company, Mobtel.
March 2006 — During his war crimes trial in The Hague, Milosevic is found dead in his prison cell.
May 2006 — The EU suspends negotiations for Serbia's admission when Serbia misses the deadline to turn over accused war criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic to the ICTY.
June 2006 — Serbia becomes an independent sovereign republic after Montenegro votes to dissolve the union with Serbia.
January 2007 — Serbia witnesses its first parliamentary elections since the breakup of the union with Montenegro in June of 2006. The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party wins most of the seats in Parliament but not enough to form a government. No clear winner emerges and the elections are followed by months of bickering.
March 2007 — Mihalj Kertes, former customs chief and a key aide to former president Milosevic, is arrested after being charged with embezzling state funds. He is charged with abuse of office and criminal conspiracy for allegedly transferring millions of dollars of state money to accounts in Cyprus and elsewhere abroad. The indictment alleges that Kertes transferred the funds according to Milosevic's orders and the money is believed to have ended up in private accounts held by Milosevic's family and closest associates.
May 2007 — Zdravko Tolimir, one of the top fugitives most wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal for his alleged role in the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia, is arrested. Serbia's government approves a new pro-democracy government, overcoming pressures by anti-western ultranationalists to overturn the vote and force new elections. The coalition government now consists of pro-western Democrats led by President Boris Tadic and the Conservative Democratic Party of Serbia, led by Vojislav Kostunica.
February 2008 — Democratic Party Leader Boris Tadic is re-elected as Serbia's president. His victory heightens Serbia's chances of joining the European Union. Two months later in April the EU foreign ministers sign a pact, which had been long-delayed, on closer ties with Serbia. This is seen as Serbia's first step towards eventual membership in the EU.
Kosovo declares itself independent. Serbia does not recognize the independence and claims it is illegal. In October 2006 Serbian voters approved a new constitution declaring Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia. Kosovo's Albania majority, however, boycotted the referendum along with UN sponsored talks on the independence of this disputed province . Subsequent plans of independence set forth by the UN were rejected by Serbia.
July 2008 — Mirko Cvetkovic becomes prime minister and head of a new government that includes members of the pro-EU Democratic Party and the nationalist Socialist Party.
Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, who has been living as a fugitive for nearly 13 years, is captured by Serbian security forces in Belgrade and flown to The Hague to stand trial. He has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide over the massacre of up to 8,000 mainly Muslim Bosniaks at Srebrenica in 1995. The BBC reports, according Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Karadzic's arrest "demonstrates that there is no alternative to the arrest of war criminals and that there can be no safe haven for fugitives."
August 2008 — A proposal that requires all Internet providers to install software to monitor their clients' Internet usage is successfully blocked by the ombudsman's office and civil society groups.
September 2008 — The pro-European Union faction of government wins a huge victory as Serbia signs an agreement with the organization, putting the nation on the path toward EU membership.
October 2008 — Parliament approves the establishment of an anti-corruption commission.
Eleven people, including some government and party officials, are arrested in a government contracting scheme where state funds were used as a down-payment on properties that produced lucrative resale values. The government officials and businessmen allegedly pocketed the resale value of the properties, a total of 3.5 million Euros.
November 2008 — The Association of Judges rebukes a recent parliamentary debate over judicial independence, stating that the high-levels of legislative pressure on judicial decisions creates "an atmosphere akin to lynching."
December 2008 — Sixteen border police officers were arrested for accepting bribes from individuals seeking to illegally smuggle cattle across the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Parliament votes into law multiple judicial reform policies including consolidating some municipal courts and requiring all lower-level judgeship positions to be reopened for hiring.
February 2009 — Five former top officials from the Milosevic-era are convicted of war crimes and sentenced to prison by an international court.
March 2009 — A Perdue University study concludes through interviews with past US State Department officials that American officials promised former Bosnia-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic immunity from his war crimes if he stepped down from power.
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