Short answers, pulled from the story.
Timur invaded the region in 1395 with a massive army to punish the highlanders for their allegiance to the Golden Horde. The resulting destruction of the kingdom of Simsim marked a turning point in Chechen history and forced tribes to build thousands of stone towers for defense.
The Soviet Union carried out Operation Lentil in 1944 to forcibly deport the entire Chechen and Ingush populations to the Kazakh SSR. Over 60% of the Chechen and Ingush populations perished during the journey and in the harsh conditions of exile.
Dzhokhar Dudayev was an ex-Soviet Air Force general who became the new Chechen President and issued a unilateral declaration of independence on the 1st of November 1991. He was killed by Russian forces in April 1996 using a booby trap bomb and a missile fired from a warplane.
The Second Chechen War began in October 1999 following a series of apartment bombings in Russian cities. Russia took control of most regions and re-captured Grozny in February 2000, causing the Ichkerian regime to fall apart.
Ramzan Kadyrov has been the caretaker prime minister since 2005 and was appointed as the new president in 2007. He is the son of Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in a landmine explosion on the 9th of May 2004.
In April 2024, all music in Chechnya must have a tempo between 80 and 116 beats per minute to comply with Chechen traditions. The region has also seen a revival of Islam with 465 mosques and 31 madrasas, including an Islamic university named Kunta-haji.