Lithuania
Lithuania is a small country in the north of Europe. It's often mentioned together with other Baltic states, Latvia (to the north) and Estonia (to the north of Latvia).
In the 1300s, the Grand Duchy was the largest country in Europe, occupying what is now Belarus, Ukraine, part of Poland and part of Russia.
After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (known mostly for dividing Poland between Stalin and Hitler), it was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and annexed as a member republic. This didn't fly well with the Lithuanians, who continued armed guerrilla resistance against the Soviets for many years after the Second World War. It was the first Soviet republic to declare independence in 1991, causing the Soviet military to try and intervene, killing some civilians. It joined the European Union in 2004, at the same time as nine other countries (all but two ex-Communist ones). In 2004, together with 6 other European states, it became a member of NATO.
[edit] See also
- Daniel Estulin - Lithuanian byproduct.