During its rich and chequered history, Sarajevo has been ruled by three Empires: the Western Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire; before becoming part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and subsequently the capital of the independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was during the prosperous time of the Ottoman Empire that many of the local population converted to Islam, and it was in this period that many of its most impressive mosques and other monuments were built.
Sarajevo has a reputation for being at the centre of conflict. It was famously, in Sarajevo, close to the Latin Bridge, that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist in 1914, triggering the start of the First World War.
Sarajevo was also at the heart of the Yugoslav Wars, which broke out after the fall of Communism, due to conflict between the different ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosnians. It has the dubious honour of having suffered the longest siege in modern warfare from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.