The Soviet Union’s breakup unexpectedly left the multiethnic and multireligious republics to fare for themselves. Suddenly long-simmering tensions flared up and dormant dreams of independence reawakened. Yugoslavia fared particularly poorly: the Serb and Croat republics seceded from it first, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the Bosnian Serb faction rejected the act, and with military support from Yugoslavia, the Serb government insurgents led by Slobodan Milosevic launched an attack on Bosnia.

On this day, August 30, after an international peacekeeping force brought in to curb human rights abuses by the Serbian forces saw continuing massacres in the region, and as the peacekeeper outposts  began facing attacks on themselves, NATO began a sustained bombing campaign against the Milosevic government.

NATO planes few 3515 against 338 individual targets, and a lot of munitions were precision-guided. The air defenses in Yugoslavia left over from the Soviet days, were still pretty formidable, but NATO forces lost only a few planes, and ultimately succeeded and bringing Milosevic and Yugoslavia to accept the Dayton Peace agreement ending the war.