The Illyrians, ancestors of today's Albanians, occupied the western Balkans in the 2nd millennium BC, ... The Greeks arrived in the 7th century BC, traded peacefully with the Illyrians, who set up their own tribal states by the 4th century BC. The Greeks took over the south, and still have a claim on it today. The Roman Empire sent 200 warships in 228 BC. and spread their rule to the whole of the Balkans by 167 BC, and Illyria enjoyed peace and prosperity except for the slaves working on the agricultural estates.

The Visigoths, Huns, Ostrogoths and Slavs struck during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. In the 11th century, the Byzantines, Bulgarians and Normans squabbled over the northern region of Illyria. In 1479 the Ottomans invaded and ruled until 1912, . In 1878, the Albanian League at Prizen (in present day Kosovo, Yugoslavia) began a struggle for autonomy that continues today. The Turkish army squashed the first glimmers of independence in 1881, but further uprisings between 1910 and 1912 culminated in the declaration of independence and the formation of a provincial government led by Ismail Qemali. The London Ambassadors' Conference of 1913 handed Kosova, - nearly half of Albania - over to the Serbs. The communists consolidated power after WW 2 and proclaimed the People's Republic of Albania in 1946.

In 1968, Albania left the Warsaw Pact altogether. It embarked on a self-reliant defence policy that has left the country littered with around 750,000 igloo-shaped concrete bunkers and pillboxes, some of which have since been painted in bright colours. ... As much as 20% of the labour force currently works abroad, mainly in Greece and Italy. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia in spring 1999, nearly half a million ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo spilled over the border into neighbouring Albania.