NEW COUNTRY ON THE BLOCK. It looks like we'll soon be welcoming Montenegro into the family of sovereign states. But don't believe everything you read in the newspapers: "For supporters of Montenegrin independence, the results, however narrow, are the fruition of a decade-long struggle to enable Montenegro to reclaim its status from 1878 to 1918, when it was a republic and an internationally recognized state." Nope. Independent Montenegro was a principality and then a monarchy under the rule of Nicholas Petrovic until the country joined up with Serbia and the rest of the gang after World War I to form the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under the auspices of the Serbian royal family.
--Matthew Yglesias