The Yugoslav statesman Marshal Tito (born 1892) became president of Yugoslavia in 1953. He directed the rebuilding of a Yugoslavia devastated in World War II and the welding of Yugoslavia's different peoples into unity until his death in 1980.

From its creation in 1918 until is dissolution in the early 1990s, Yugoslavia was a multinational state composed of numerous ethnic and religious groups. It was made up of historical provinces which were first united into a single state in 1918. The building of a state proved a difficult task. The various ethnic groups were dissatisfied with their status in the new state, resented Serbian domination, and clamored for greater national and political rights. The national and religious groups were suspicious of each other. The country's economy was unstable throughout the interwar period, and the country was surrounded by enemy states dedicated to its destruction. Because of these conditions, Communist and fascist groups found...