Today is a public holiday across Croatia as the country celebrates Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day, the Day of Croatian Defenders, and the 29th anniversary of the military-police operation "Storm," which in three days liberated 11,000 square kilometers of occupied territory in northern Dalmatia, Lika, Banovina, and Kordun.

The military-police operation Storm began on August 4, 1995, at 5 a.m., and by August 7, the Croatian army had liberated the occupied areas in Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun, and Banovina, returning them to the Republic of Croatia.

The anniversary of Storm is celebrated every year on August 5, the day when Croatian soldiers entered Knin, the capital of the self-proclaimed para-state of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), which after the summer of 1995 was reduced to areas in eastern Slavonia, near the border with Serbia, and which were returned to Croatia after the peaceful reintegration of the Danube region in 1998.