During World War II, in the village of Bela Crkva, partisan Žikica Jovanović Španac killed two gendarmes on 7 July 1941, which would become the official date of celebration of the people's uprising against occupiers in Serbia during communist rule. On 26 September 1941, a meeting of partisans' main headquarters, presided by Josip Broz Tito, was held in the nearby village of Stolice. A monument and memorial park were built after the war, celebrating the event. As the town was one of the centers of the Republic of Užice, it was burned to the ground by German occupiers in late 1941, with only a few buildings surviving.