Lithuania

The Republic of Lithuania, one of former Soviet Union Republics, is a country in northern Europe. Situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, sharing borders with Latvia, Belarus, Poland, and the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast.

During the 1300s, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, as present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was finally destroyed by its neighboring countries in 1795. Most of Lithuania's territory was annexed to Russian Empire, until the Act of Independence was signed on February 16, 1918, which declared re-establishment of a sovereign state. Lithuania was occupied by Soviet Union in 1940 and by Nazi Germany in 1941. When World War II was near its end in 1944 and the Nazis retreated, Lithuania would again be merged into the Soviet Union. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare its renewed independence.