-
NAACP Formed
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York City for the purpose of improving the conditions of colored people. -
Period: to
Armernian Genocide
The Ottoman Empire carries out the first genocide of the 20th century on the Armenian population in the empire. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians are tortured and executed and millions of others are forced from their homes and marched across deserts to resettlement areas. It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians died during the genocide. -
Pan-African Congress
The Pan-African Congress meets and petitions the Paris Peace Conference that Africans take part in governing their land "as fast as their development permits" until African colonies are granted home rule. -
League of Nations Covenant
The League of Nations Covenant is signed as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The mission of the League is "to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security." For the first time in history, collective security is introduced on an international scale. -
Slavery Convention
The Geneva Conference passes a Slavery Convention, demonstrating international agreement to end all conditions of slavery worldwide. -
Kellogg-Briand Pact
In the Kellogg-Briand Pact, 15 nations renounce the "recourse to war for the solution of international controversies." -
Period: to
Soviet Gulags
Joseph Stalin uses the murder of Sergei Kirov, probably ordered by Stalin himself, to launch a reign of terror. During the Russian Purges, it is estimated that some 20 million Russian citizens were killed or died in the Gulags, a vast majority for crimes they never committed. -
Period: to
Holocaust
During World War II, an estimated 6 million European Jews are exterminated by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Millions of civilians (Gypsies, Communists, Soviet POWs, Poles, Ukrainians, people with disabilities, labor unionists, "Habitual" criminals, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, Free Masons and indigent people such as vagrants and beggars) are forced into concentration camps, subjected to "medical" experiments, starved, brutalized and/or murdered. -
United Nations Established
The United Nations (UN) is established. The Charter of the UN states that one of the primary purposes of the UN is the promotion and encouragement of "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion." Unlike the League of Nations Covenant, the UN Charter underscores the principle of individual human rights. -
Period: to
Nuremburg Trials
In the trials at Nuremberg, the Allied powers prosecute Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the first criminal trial in history to prosecute crimes committed by individuals during wartime. -
South Africa Begins Apartheid
The government of South Africa begins enacting more rigorous and authoritarian segregation laws that cement the ideology of apartheid into law. The laws detail how and where the colored population lives and works, strip the colored population of their ability to vote, and go to great length to maintain white racial purity. -
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the primary international articulation of the fundamental and inalienable rights of all human beings and the first comprehensive agreement among nations with regards to the specific rights and freedom of all human beings. -
Mattachine Society Founded
The Mattachine Society organizes in Los Angeles to fight discrimination against gays in housing, employment and assembly, and to lobby for the enactment of a bill of rights for gays. -
Convention on Political Rights of Women
The UN adopts the Convention on Political Rights of Women. -
Civil Rights Act Passed
The U.S. Congress passes and President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Omnibus Civil Rights Bill, banning discrimination in voting, jobs, public accommodation, and other activities. -
Nelson Mandela Imprisoned
Nelson Mandela and seven other leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) are convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life in prison by the South African government for protesting the apartheid policies in South Africa. -
Period: to
Chinese Cultural Revolution
Mao Zedong begins a "purification" of leftist ideas known as the Cultural Revolution in China, resulting in a decade of internal unrest and violence as thousands of Chinese citizens are killed by their own government. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots in New York City begin a movement for gay rights. -
Title IX Passed
Title IX is passed, guaranteeing that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." -
Declaration on Rights of Disabled Persons
The UN adopts the Declaration on Rights of Disabled Persons. -
Human Rights Watch Established
Helsinki Watch is established to monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords. This organization later merges into Human Rights Watch. -
Indian Removal Reparations
The U.S. Supreme Court orders the federal government to pay some $120 million dollars to eight tribes of Sioux Indians in reparation for American Indian land that the government seized illegally in 1877. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
In Tiananmen Square, Chinese authorities massacre student demonstrators struggling for democracy. -
Berlin Wall Falls
The Berlin Wall is dismantled. -
Ethnic Clensing Condemned
A UN Security Council resolution condemns "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another Security Council resolution demands that all detention camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina be closed. -
Partiot Act
The U.S. Congress ratifies the Patriot Act reducing the rights and freedoms of many Americans. -
US Torture Revealed
Press reports describe the U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison during and after the 2003 Iraq War. -
Period: to
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (violent and violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab world that began in 2010 and spread throughout the countries of the Arab League and surroundings. While the wave of initial revolutions and protests had expired by mid-2012, some refer to the ongoing conflicts as a continuation of the Arab Spring, while others refer to the second wave of revolutions and civil wars post mid-2012 as the Arab Winter.