The events that led to the Dayton Peace Accords are long and complex.  This is a very brief summary.

After the results of a 1992 vote on seceding from the rapidly disintegrating Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were announced (a majority voted for secession), Yugoslav Army units, in concert with some Bosnian Serbs, began their assault on Bosnia.  Caught up in the ethnic-based power grabs led by Slobodan Milosevic and others, Bosnians suffered unthinkable horrors during nearly four years of war.   Concentration camps, murders and atrocities of all types took place across the country.   The people of Sarajevo endured a diabolic siege.  Hemmed in on all sides by Bosnian Serb armies and artillery, thousands of civilians lost their lives to snipers, shellfire, and the appalling conditions and the seeming indifference of the world community. 

In 1995, the United States government, moved to action following the brutal massacre of 7000 Muslims at Srebrenica and the bombing of a market in Sarajevo, brought the leaders of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia to Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio to negotiate an end to the war.  US negotiators led by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke worked tirelessly and successfully to bring about a creative solution. On November 21, 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords was initialed by the leaders, bringing an end to a conflict that had cost more than 200,000 lives and led to the displacement of nearly one million people. 

In recognition of the historical importance of what occurred that day, the people of Dayton have sought to make peace in the Balkans a reality.  Under the auspices of the Dayton Peace Accords effort, Dayton educational, civic, business and humanitarian institutions, as well as groups and individuals organized international symposia, conferences, workshops, friendship and trade missions, exchanges, and cultural and assistance programs designed to promote genuine peace, reconciliation and reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  As a result, a special relationship between Dayton and Bosnia-Herzegovina has developed, and leaders and citizens from our communities have built a relationship that can serve as a model of international cooperation in the spirit of peace.