font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
"Times New Roman"" lang="EN-US">Užice fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1463, and was
part of the Sanjak of Smederevo until 1807, when it was liberated by
the Serbian revolutionaries, during the First Serbian Uprising. It
was the administrative seat of the region and district, with many merchants and
craftsmen. Only at the end of the 19th century, it has started developing as an
industrial town. So, a small factory making blankets and homespun felt started
operating in Užice in 1868, and a leather factory was founded in 1880.
Nevertheless, Užice was the first town in Serbia with a hydroelectric
power plant based on Nikola Tesla's principles. It was built on the Đetinja River
in 1900.
World War II
In 1941, Užice was liberated by the Partizans, who
chose it as the capital of the Republic of Užice. This republic was a
short-lived military mini-state that existed in the autumn of 1941 in the
western part of Nazi-occupied Serbia.
