special relativity - Why does Minkowski space provide an accurate description of flat spacetime?

What is the chain of reasoning (beginning, of course, from observations about the universe) that leads one to predict that Minkowski space provides an accurate description of space-time in the framework of special relativity?

That is, why should flat space-time have the Minkowski metric $$\eta = \left(\eta_{\alpha\beta}\right) = \left( \begin{matrix} 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & -1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & -1 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & -1 \end{matrix}\right)\,?$$