Chronography of International Organisations; key historical events
Page last
modified 26 January 2023
See
separate page for European Union
1) Graphic of Crude Birth / Death rates,
selected countries, evolution over time.
2) Choropleth map of world fertility rates
by country 1970 & 2005
3) Choropleth map of world population %
growth by country 1950-2009
4) Choropleth map of world life
expectancy by country, 1960 & 2010
5) Chart of changing global age structure
1950 - 2100
6) Choropleth map of world literacy rate by
country, 1960 & 2005
7) Male-Female Literacy
Differential Map Choropleth map
of male-female differential literacy rates (% male compared to % female
literacy)
8) Choropleth map of world % agricultural
employment by country, 1960 & 2005
9) Choropleth map of world GDP by country, relative
to USA, national and per capita, 1960-2005
Local regional level
population within countries, http://www.citypopulation.de/
Socio-demographic world
clocks, https://www.worldometers.info/
�It tends to be people with something to lose, and not
merely something to gain, who think most eagerly of improving the existing
state of society� (and start a Revolution), David Thomson, p.25, Europe since
Napoleon, Penguin, 1983.
See
appendix 0 below for Red Cross
See Appendix 2 below for
NATO
See Appendix 3 below for
United Nations and League of Nations
Colour key:
People
Africa
Demography
League of
Nations
Europe
International
Trade
Organisations
International Financial
Organisations
International Environmental Organisations
International Humanitarian and Justice Organisations
International
military organisations
31 October 2011, The global population officially
reached 7 billion.
25/2/2006, The global
population officially reached 6.5 billion.
2 July 2005, Live8 Concerts, to raise funds for Africa, were
held in Berlin, Edinburgh, London, Moscow, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, and other
cities.
2002, The
International Criminal Court (ICC) was established. Replacing earlier ad-hoc
United Nations tribunals, the ICC was set up to try individuals accused of
crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes. It is located in The Hague,
Netherlands.
9 July 2002, The African Union (AU) was founded, as a
successor to the Organisation of African
Unity(founded 1963, dissolved 2002).�
The AU was idealistically modelled upon the European Union, with plans
for a supranational government, administration, a Court of Justice, financial
institutions and a peace and security council. There was also to be a
pan-African Parliament, based in South Africa. However the required
co-operation between African states has not so far been achieved,
30 November 2000, Major
demonstrations in Seattle against the World Trade Organisation meeting there.
8 September 2000, Albania officially joined the WTO.
30 April 1999, Cambodia
joined the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total number of members to ten.
12 October 1999, According to the UN, the world population reached 6 billion.
18 June 1999,
Anti-Globalisation protests in many cities around the world, some of which
became riots.
1 January 1995, The World Trade Organisation was created
to replace GATT.
8 December 1994, US President Clinton
signed for the USA to agree to the Uruguay Round of the GATT trade
liberalisation agreement, This replaced GATT by the WTO in 1995.
1993, NAFTA, North American Free
Trade Association, was founded.
15 December 1993. Completion of the GATT Uruguay Round (began 1986 in
Punta del Este, Uruguay). 117 countries signed the economic liberalisation
agreement in Marrakesh, Morocco.
9 November 1993. The UN said the number of refugees worldwide rose from 2.5 million in
1973 to 19.7 million today
21 March 1992, The
US Census Bureau officially estimated the world population to be 5.4 billion,
of whom 1.2 billion were Chinese. It projected a world population of over 8
billion by 2020.
1989, APEC, Asia-Pacific Economic
Co-operation, was founded.
1989, The
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was set up, following a G7 Summit. It is an
inter-governmental organisation aimed at preventing money-laundering. After the
9-11 attacks of 2001, the FATF also took on the role of preventing funds
reaching terrorist groups.
11 July 1987, The world population was officially
stated to have attained 5 billion.
21 September 1986. The Stockholm
Accord was signed, at a 35-nation conference. Advance warning of troop
movements by NATO or the Warsaw pact was agreed.
25 December 1985, Comic Relief, a
global poverty relief charity, was founded.
7 July 1982, Hungary
became a member of the World Bank.
6 May 1982, Hungary
joined the International Monetary Fund.
1981, World
population reached 4.5 billion, of whom 960 million were Chinese.
1975, The �G7� was founded. A group of seven
countries, later to become 8 with the addition of Russia, who met to decide
economic policy and sometimes to co-ordinate strategy.
28 May 1975, 15 West African
states signed the Treaty of Lagos,
setting up the Economic Community of
West African States.
1974, World population reached 4 billion.
1972, The UK charity Action Aid was founded, to help improve living
conditions in Global South countries.
8 August 1967, ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) was
founded. The original members were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand. Brunei joined in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Laos and
Myanmar in 1997,� and Cambodia in 1999.
East Timor attempted to join, post-independence, but was blocked by Indonesia.
11/1966, The Asian Development Bank was set up.
1963, The African Development Bank was founded. Based in
Abidjan, Cote d�Ivoire, its function was to make loans at preferential rates
for African development schemes. Funded by both individual countries and other
multinational organisations, it began operations in 1966.
25 May 1963, The
OAU (Organisation of African Unity) was founded at Addis Ababa.
30 September 1961, The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development) was founded in Paris.
28 May 1961. Amnesty International was
founded in London.
14 September 1960, OPEC �was set up by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
and Venezuela.
supply to Tunisia by the USSR; France feared
Tunisian support for Algerian Nationalists.
26 October 1956, The United Nations approved the creation of
the International Atomic Energy Agency.
1955, CENTO
(Central Treaty Organisation) was
formed. It was a political/military alliance, comprising the UK along with
Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, whose purpose was to defend against any
possible aggression from the USSR. Iraq withdrew in 1958 and CENTO ceased to
exist when Iran also withdrew after the 1979 Revolution.
27 April 1955, The First Bandung Conference
ended (started 18 April 1955). This was a meeting of 29 newly-independent
African and Asian countries who were keen to distance themselves from the
USA/USSR superpower rivalry. Nations in attendance included China (Zhou
Enlai), India (Nehru), Cambodia
(Sihanouk), Burma (U Nu), and Egypt (Gamal
Abd-al-Nasser). The presence of China signalled that country�s
determination to pursue its own brand of Communism, independent of Russia, The
Summit, held in Bandung, Indonesia, was a major foreign policy triumph for Indonesian
President Sukharno.
8 September 1954, The Treaty setting up SEATO (South East
Asia Treaty Organisation) was signed at Manila.
18 May 1954. The European
Convention on Human Rights came into force.
31 December 1951, The Organisation of
American States was founded in Washington DC.
1 July 1951. The Colombo Plan
was founded in Sri Lanka, to aid the development of south east Asia.
6 June 1950, Trygve Lie was appointed to a new term as United
Nations Secretary General. He announced a 20-year peace programme, more
meetings with foreign ministers, creation of a permanent UN military force,
admission of new members, and more aid for poorer countries.
27 April 1949, The Commonwealth was founded in London.
25 January 1949. COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) was
founded in Moscow.
2 September 1947, The Organisation of American States (OAS) was set up.
1945, Christian Aid
was set up, to provide relief operations in developing countries.
1945, The International Monetary Fund was founded. The World
Bank was founded. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development) was founded.
11/1939, The Nobel Peace Prize
Committee decided that the annual Nobel Peace Prize would not be awarded this
year.
1930, The Bank for International Settlements was founded.
3 October 1928, Shridrath
Ramphal, Secretary General of the Commonwealth, was born
17 June 1925, Geneva arms Conference closed.
4 May 1925, Geneva Conference on arms traffic and the use of
poison gas in� war opened.
15/2/1922. The first session of the Permanent Court of International
Justice was held in The Hague, Netherlands.
16 December 1920. Permanent Court of International Justice established at
The Hague.
11/ April 1919. The International
Labour Organisation was established.
1913, Plans were drawn up for a worldwide map at a scale of 1:1,100,000. The project was
interrupted by World War One, but the United
Nations revived the project in 1953. The entire map series was never
completed.
18 October 1907, Plans were announced for an International Court of
Justice, to be set up in The Hague.
29 July 1899. At The Hague, a conference of 26 countries established a
permanent international court of arbitration.
2 October 1889, The first
Pan-American Congress met, in Washington. Its aim was to create closer
relations between the States of the Americas.
6 June 1882, The three-mile limit for territorial waters was
established by the Hague Convention.
16 April 1855, The Declaration of Paris was signed.
Appendix
0 � Red Cross
30 October 1910. Henri Durant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross in 1863, died.
1904, The Chinese Red Cross was founded.
1896, The Canadian Red Cross was founded.
21 May 1881, The American Association of the
Red Cross was founded by US nurse Clara Burton.
1877, The Japanese Red Cross was founded.
1876, The Danish Red Cross was founded.
5 August 1870, At a public meeting in London, a resolution was passed
calling for the formation of a British National Society for Aid to the Sick and
Wounded in War. This was the forerunner to the British Red Cross. This was seven years after the founding of the International Red Cross.
1867, The Austrian Red Cross was
founded.
1865, The Swedish Red Cross was
founded.
1865, The Norwegian Red Cross was
founded.
29 October 1863. Swiss philanthropist Henri Dunant founded the International Red
Cross after witnessing the tending of the wounded at the Battle of
Solferino, near Mantua, north Italy. Its fundamental principles were to aid wounded soldiers and oteyhr
victims of war.
17/2/1863, Swiss
philanthropist Jean
Henri Dunant proposed the International
Red Cross in Geneva.
1859, Henri Dunant travelled through the site of the
Battle of Solferino, a few days
after the actual battle in June; 15,000 lay dead and wounded, and many of the
wounded lay for days before anyone came to care for them. Many of these died of
their wounds before medical attention arrived. This sight led him to establish
the Red Cross.
8 May 1828. Jean Henri
Dumont, Swiss philanthropist and founder of the International Red Cross, was born in Geneva.
Appendix 2
� NATO
1 April 2009, Albania and Croatia
were admitted to NATO.
29 March 2004, NATO was
expanded to include Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia,
and Slovenia.
22 November 2002, NATO agreed to invite Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
Slovakia and Slovenia to join in 2004.
12 March 1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined NATO.
30 April 1998, The US Senate voted to admit Hungary, Poland
and the Czech republic to NATO.
8 July 1997, NATO invited the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to
join the alliance.
22 May 1990, NATO
Ministers cut defence spending, the so-called �Peace Dividend�.
31 March 1967, The Supreme Headquarters of NATO moved from France
to Casteau, Belgium.
28 September 1960, NATO
introduced a unified system of air command.
3 October 1954, A Nine-Power conference in London agreed that in the interests of
European unity, Germany could join NATO.
4 April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in
Washington. NATO was set up on 18 March 1949, by Britain and seven other
European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25 March 1949. Eleven
countries signed in total.
25 March 1949, Denmark
agreed to join NATO.
Appendix 3
� United Nations and League of Nations
United Nations
Statistics, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm
7 March 2012, The UN
presented its report on violations of the human rights of gay people worldwide.
Representatives of several African and Arab States walked out.
14 September 2009, The UN
adopted the principles of �Responsibility to Protect� or R2P. This says that the sovereignty of
States is not absolute in that the UN can choose to intervene when a state
fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and human rights violations.
26 August 2002. The
start of a ten-day �Earth Summit� held by the UN in South Africa. Delegates
promised �action not words�. The Summit was snubbed by President George Bush, who refused to attend.
21 September 2001, The United Nations
designated this day every year as International
Day of Peace, and called for a ceasefire in all conflicts on this day.
1999, Nauru
joined the United Nations.
13 December 1996, Kofi Anan became the
7th Secretary General of the UN.
1992, Kazakhstan was admitted to the
United Nations.
1992, Armenia was admitted to the
United Nations.
22 May 1992, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia joined the United
Nations
1 January 1992, Butros Butros Ghali, a 69-year-old Egyptian,
became the 6th General Secretary of the United Nations.
1991, South Korea joined the United
Nations.
11 November 1981, Antigua and Barbuda joined the United Nations.
25 November 1974, U Thant, Burmese diplomat and
Secretary-General to the UN 1962-71, died.
18 September 1973, The UN admitted East and West Germany.
21 December 1971, Kurt Waldheim succeeded U Thant as Secretary-General to
the UN.
7 January 1965, Indonesia left the United Nations, under President
Sukarno. This was in protest at Malaysia becoming a Security Council
member.
23 March 1964, The first United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) opened at Geneva.
14 May 1963, Kuwait was admitted to the United
Nations.
25 October 1962, Uganda was admitted to the United Nations, as
the 110th member.
3 November 1961, The Burmese diplomat U Thant was elected UN Secretary-General.
27 October 1961, Mauritania and Mongolia were admitted to the
United Nations.
18 September 1961, Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish Secretary General of
the United
Nations and Nobel Prize Winner, was killed a plane crash near Ndola in
Northern Rhodesia.� He had been flying
from
26 September 1957, Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden was re-elected
Secretary-General of the United Nations for a further 5 years.
14 December 1955. Ireland joined the United Nations.
7 April 1953, Swedish civil servant Dag Hammarskold succeeded Trygve Lie
as secretary of the United Nations.
31 March 1953, Swedish
diplomat Dag
Hammarskjold was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
4/2/1952, The United
Nations Disarmament Commission first met.
28 September 1950, Indonesia was admitted to the UN.
10 January 1950, In the
UN, the Soviet envoy walked out in protest at the Chinese Nationalists
retaining the UN seat.
9 April 1949, The
International Court of Justice of the UN handed down its first judgement. It
held Albania responsible for incidents in the Corfu Channel, 1946, and awarded
damages to the UK.
10 December 1948, The United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
30 September 1947, Pakistan and Yemen joined the UN.
1946, Afghanistan
joined the United Nations.
14 December 1946, The UN accepted a
US$ 8.5 million donation from John D Rockefeller to finance the construction of
its headquarters in East River, New York, USA.
13 December 1946, The UN approved the
creation of 8 trust territories, to see their final independence. They were New
Guinea (under mandate of Australia); Western Samoa (New Zealand);
Ruanda-Urundi, which later split as the nations of Rwanda and Burundi
(Belgium); Tanganyika, later merged with Zanzibar as Tanzania (United Kingdom);
and the Cameroons (Cameroon) and Togoland (Togo), under a British and French
mandate.
11 December 1946, The UN
International Children�s Emergency Fund was set up to provide aid to children
in war-torn countries.
5 December 1946. New York was chosen as the permanent site of
the UN.
19 November 1946, The first General Conference of UNESCO was held at Paris.
4 November 1946. UNESCO, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation, was
established, with headquarters in
23
October 1946, The first New York meeting of the General
Assembly of the United Nations Organisation took place.
18 April 1946. The League of Nations was formally dissolved,
after the United Nations had been set up on 24 October 1945. See 26 June 1945.
25 March 1946, The UN Security Council met in New York.
30 January 1946. UN General Assembly met for the first time,
in London.
29 January 1946, The United Nations Security Council agreed
to recommend Trygve
Lie as Secretary General of the Security Council.
12 January 1946. The United Nations General Assembly voted
to admit Brazil, Poland and Australia to a 2 year term on the Security council,
and to admit Mexico, Egypt and The Netherlands for 1 year terms.
10 January 1946, The League of Nations was officially
dissolved, after 26 years, and replaced by the United Nations.
24 October 1945. The United Nations Charter came into
force, see 18 April 1946.
26 June 1945, The
Charter for the United Nations was signed by the US.
25 June 1945. The
Charter for the United Nations was drawn up in San Francisco, and signed by 50
countries. This was the successor to the League of Nations. See 18 April 1946.
25 April 1945, An international conference to establish a
world security organisation, the �United
Nations�, opened in San Francisco.
20 October 1943, The United
Nations War Crimes Commission was formed.
18 May 1943, UNRRA was founded.
14 August 1941, The UK Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the US
President, Woodrow
Wilson signed the Atlantic Charter, a further step towards the
establishment of the United Nations.
12 June 1941, The Allies signed the Inter-Allied Declaration,
setting the scene for the future United Nations.
8 April 1938, �Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, was born.
20/2/1937. Paraguay
left the League of Nations.
1936, Italy left the
League of Nations.
1934, The USSR joined the League of Nations.
11 June 1934, The League of
Nations Disarmament Conference at Geneva ended in failure.
1933, Germany left the
League of Nations.
27 March 1933, Japan announced it would leave
the League of Nations, effective 1935.
16 March 1933, At the
League of Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Britain�s
plan for a reduction in the size of national armies failed, because of Germany�s
insistence that its Stormtroopers not be included in the totals.
3 October 1932, Iraq joined the League of Nations.
2/2/1932, The World
Conference on Disarmament opened in Geneva,
12 September 1931, Mexico was
admitted to the League of Nations.
10/2/1926, Germany applied
to join the League of Nations, Brazil and Spain blocked Germany�s admission, in
protest at the plan to give Germany a seat on the Council, which they thought
they should have instead.
10 September 1923. The Irish Free
State was admitted to the League of Nations.
22 September 1921. The Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia
joined the League of Nations.
17 December 1920, Albania joined the League of Nations.
16 December 1920. Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Finland and
Latvia joined the League of Nations.
3 December 1920, Austria joined the League of Nations.
13 November 1920. The first
full session of the
27 October 1920, The League of Nations headquarters moved to Geneva,
16 June 1920. At
25 May 1920, The Hague was
chosen as the permanent seat of the League of Nations.
10 March 1920, The Netherlands
joined the League of Nations.
8 March 1920. Denmark joined
the League of Nations.
5 March 1920, Norway joined the
League of Nations.
1/2/1920, The first full
session of the League of Nations opened at St James Palace, London, overseen by
the British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour. Plans were made for an
International Court of Justice.
13/2/1920, Switzerland
joined the League of Nations.
19 January 1920, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary of the
United Nations from 1982, was born.
13 January 1920, Argentina
joined the League of Nations.
10 January 1920. The League of Nations, whose function was
defined on 28 April 1919, legally came into being at
25 January 1919. The
22 January 1917, US
President Woodrow
Wilson delivered a speech to the Senate, �Peace Without Victory�,
condemning European imperialism and militarism and calling for a League of
Nations.
27 May 1916, In the
USA, a peacekeeping League of nations was proposed, to be created at the end of
the Great War.
22 January 1909, U Thant, diplomat and Secretary General to the
United Nations, was born in
