 Towards the end of World War I, on 16 February 1918, twenty people signed the Act 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.