Beginning in the 6th century East Slavic tribes settled in Belarus. By the 9th and 10th centuries several principalities emerged and and the East Slavic tribes became part of Kievan Rus' and were converted to Orthodox Christianity. In the 13th century, Belorussian lands were added to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After uniting with Rome in 1596. Some of the population adhered  to the Eastern Rite church. While most adopted the Latin Rite Catholicism. In the 19th century, an independent Berlarus was proclaimed after the collapse of the Russian Empire. In 1920 the eastern region of Belarus became the Belorussian SSR (part of the Soviet Union) and the western region was occupied by Poland after the Polish Soviet war. In 1939, the beginning of World War II the USSR dominated the western region, losing one-quarter of its population. By the mid-1980s a rebirth was constructed by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, stimulating a national revival. The end of the USSR was hastened by the strife of the Belorussian workers. The Commonwealth of Independent States was formed on December 1991, with the capital  of Belarus being Minsk.

History