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America enters WWI
America entered World War One. The country as a whole and the president - Woodrow Wilson in particular - was horrified by the slaughter that had taken place in what was meant to be a civilised part of the world. To avoid the repition of such a disaster, League of Nations was formed with the sole purpose of maintaining world peace and dealing with international disputes as and when they occurred. -
League of Nations failure in Italy
For 15 months, Fiume was governed by an Italian nationalist called d’Annunzio. The situation was solved by the Italian government who could not accept that d’Annunzio was seemingly more popular than they were, so they bombarded the port of Fiume and enforced a surrender. In all this the League played no part despite the fact that it had just been set up with the specific task of maintaining peace. -
First meeting of League of Nations
The League of Nations held its first council meeting in Paris, six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force -
First General Assembly
The headquarters of the League was moved to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held. -
Commission for Refugees established
Led by Fridtjof Nansen, the Commission for Refugees was established to look after the interests of refugees, including overseeing their repatriation and, when necessary, resettlement -
The Aaland Islands
These islands are lbetween Finland and Sweden; they had traditionally belonged to Finland but most of the islanders wanted to be governed by Sweden. Neither country could come to a decision as to who owned the islands and so they asked the League to decide. The League’s decision was that they should remain with Finland. Both countries accepted the decision and it remains in force to this day. -
League of Nations: Mussolini - Hitler conference
Benito Mussolini suggested to Adolf Hitler that one way of solving this issue was to hold a conference in Munich with Germany, Britain, France and Italy, excluding both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Therefore increasing the possibility of reaching an agreement and undermine the solidarity that was developing against Germany. -
Soviet Union expelled from League
Stalin argued that Leningrad was only thirty-two kilometres from the Finnish border and its 3.5 million population, were vulnerable to artillery fire from Nazi Germany. After attempts to negotiate the stationing of Soviet troops in Finland failed, Stalin ordered the Red Army to invade. This time the League of Nations decided to take action and expelled the Soviet Union. -
United Nations formed
The purpose of the United Nations was and is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people. -
International Monetary Fund came into existence
29 countries signed the Articles of Agreement, it originally had 45 members. The IMF's stated goal was to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world’s international payment system post World War II. Countries contribute money to a pool through a quota system from which countries with payment imbalances can borrow funds on a temporary basis. -
Final meeting of League of Nations
The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in Geneva, and delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly. -
First UN peacekeeping mission
The first UN peacekeeping mission to deploy a team of observers to the Middle East during the Arab-Israeli War was officially authorized. -
UNEF
First Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly meets on the Suez Canal crisis and decides to establish the first UN peace-keeping force- the UN Emergency Force (UNEF). -
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization, the legal successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, was commenced on the basis of the multilateral trade negotiations. The WTO has about 150 members, accounting for about 95% of world trade. Around 30 others are negotiating membership. -
IMF supports Haiti
The International Monetary Fund today approved a stand-by credit for Haiti up to the equivalent of SDR 20 million (about $31 million) over the next 12 months to support the Government's economic and financial program for 1995-96. -
IMF and Japan
The management of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) welcomed the substantial economic stimulus package totaling Y14 trillion announced by the Government of Japan today. -
New WTO members
The General Council took decisions that would enable the Kyrgyz Republic and Latvia to become WTO members shortly. It adopted these countries' working party reports and protocols of accession, which set out their respective WTO commitments. -
IMF new chairman
The members of the International Monetary Fund's Interim Committee have selected Gordon Brown, the U.K.'s Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Chairman of the Committee. Mr. Brown succeeds Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy's former Minister of Treasury, Budget and Economic Programming, who resigned in May 1999. -
Norway's contribution to WTO
The Norwegian Government recently contributed two million Norwegian Kroner (approximately CHF 400,000) to the WTO Global Trust Fund to be used to benefit least-developed countries. The Fund was established in July 1999 to receive extra-budgetary donations from WTO Members to finance technical cooperation activities carried out by the WTO. -
WTO: US-China
World Trade Organization Director-General Mike Moore warmly welcomed the U.S.-China accord on Chinese accession to the WTO, but he cautioned that substantial work remained before Beijing becomes a member of the organization. The Director-General expressed confidence that this work could be completed in a relatively short period of time.
