Palestinians experience mass displacement as war follows the Mandate

India became an independent dominion at the end of British rule. Independence followed decades of mass movements, labor and peasant organizing, and political negotiation, as well as India’s large...

The boundary commission reports for Punjab and Bengal were published two days after the two dominions became independent. The late disclosure left communities uncertain about which state they would...

Burma ended British colonial rule and became a sovereign republic outside the Commonwealth. Independence followed mass anticolonial organizing and the wartime struggle, but the assassination of Aung...

Ceylon became an independent dominion, but a defense agreement that came into force on the same date allowed British forces to use agreed naval and air facilities. Independence ended direct colonial...

David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel as the British Mandate over Palestine ended. The declaration asserted Jewish national self-determination after generations of antisemitism and the...

After plantation managers were killed in Perak and labor unrest spread, Britain extended the state of emergency across the Federation of Malaya. Emergency regulations expanded detention, arrest,...

The Republic of Korea government was inaugurated south of the 38th parallel after UN-supervised elections in the South. Korea had been under Japanese colonial rule until 1945; the postwar division was...

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was proclaimed north of the 38th parallel after the establishment of a rival government in the South. The division followed the end of Japanese colonial...

The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the destruction and mass violence of World War II. The declaration set out a common rights standard, but colonial...

The General Assembly adopted Resolution 194, creating a Conciliation Commission and stating that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace should be permitted to do so, with...