the peninsula between the Danube
River and the Aegean Sea. Until 168 B.C. the northern and central part
of present-day Albania comprised parts of the Kingdom of Illyria, whose
capital was Shkoder. The Illyrian Kingdom was conquered by the Romans in
168-167 B.C., and thereafter it was a Roman colony until A.D. 395, when
the Roman Empire was split into East and West, Albania becoming part of
the Byzantine Empire.

Under the Roman Empire, Albania served as a key recruiting area for the
Roman legions and a main outlet to the East. The present port of Durres
(the ancient Durrachium) became the western terminum of Via Egnatia, an
actual extension of Via Appia, by which the Roman legions marched to the
East. It was during the Roman rule that Christianity was introduced into
Albania.

From the fifth century to the advent of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans
in the fourteenth century, invasions from the north and east, especially
by the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Slavs, thinned the indigenous
Illyrian population and drove it along the mountainous Adriatic coastal
regions. During the crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
Albania became a thoroughfare for the crusading armies, which used the
port of Durres as a bridgehead. By this time the Venetian Republic had
obtained commercial privileges in Albanian towns and, after the Fourth
Crusade (1204), it received nominal control over Albania and Epirus and
took actual possession of Durres and the surrounding areas. In the
middle of the thirteenth century Albania fell under the domination of
the kings of Naples, and in 1272 armies of Charles I of Anjou crossed
the Adriatic and occupied Durres. Thereupon, Charles I issued a decree
calling himself Rex Albaniae and creating Regnum Albaniae (the Kingdom
of Albania), which lasted for nearly a century.

OTTOMAN TURK RULE

In the period after the defeat of the Serbs by the Ottoman Turks in 1389
in the battle of Kosovo, most of Albania was divided into a number of
principalities under the control of native tribal chieftains, most of
whom were subsequently forced into submission by the invading Turks.
Some of these chieftains, however, were allowed their independence under
Turkish suzerainty. One of the most noted of these was John Kastrioti of
Kruje, a region northeast of Tirana, whose four sons were taken hostage
by the sultan to be trained in the Ottoman service. The youngest of
these, Gjergj, was destined to win fame thr