Hundreds of thousands of Serbians stormed the parliament building in Belgrade, torching furniture and overwhelming police, in what became known as the Bulldozer Revolution. The uprising, triggered by Milosevic's refusal to accept his loss to Vojislav Kostunica, ended thirteen years of authoritarian rule and led to Milosevic's eventual extradition to face war crimes charges in The Hague.
The turning point came when a bulldozer driver named Ljubisav Djokic, nicknamed 'Joe,' rammed his machine into the state television building after his own vehicle stalled while blocking a highway barricade set up by police loyal to Milosevic. Protesters flooded into the parliament building, and by evening state television, long a mouthpiece for the regime, was broadcasting footage of the takeover instead of denying it was happening.
Milosevic had ruled Serbia and dominated Yugoslav politics through the brutal wars of the 1990s in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and he had assumed he could simply falsify the September 24 election results to stay in power. But opposition groups, particularly a youth movement called Otpor ('Resistance'), had spent months organizing strikes, roadblocks, and civil disobedience across the country.
By nightfall on October 5, police had largely abandoned their posts rather than fire on the crowds, and Milosevic's grip on power evaporated within hours. He formally conceded on October 6. Within a year he was arrested and later transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he died in 2006 before his trial concluded.
Key people: Slobodan Milosevic, Vojislav Kostunica