Administrative divisions of Lithuania Governorate (consisting of eleven districts) and Slonim Governorate, were established after the third partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Just a year later, on December 12, 1796, they were merged into one governorate, called Lithuania Governorate, with capital in Vilnius. In 1801 Lithuania Governorate was split into Lithuania-Vilna Governorate and Lithuania-Grodno Governorate. Forty years later the word "Lithuania" was dropped from the two names and official maps of Europe. The territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania became known as the Northwestern Krai. In 1843 another administrative reform took place, creating Kovno Governorate out of seven western districts of the
Centennial of the Restored State of Lithuania of Independence of Lithuania, which proclaimed the restoration of an Independent State of Lithuania, creating a modern state. During World War II, Lithuania was forcibly occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, followed by Nazi Germany in 1941, and again by the Soviets in 1944 as one of its constituent republics. During the late 1980s and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lithuania fought to restore its independence which culminated in the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania signed on 11 March 1990. In order to have every Lithuanian citizen experience the significance of this