Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is proclaimed in the North

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...

The expiration of the British Mandate and the new war marked a decisive phase in the displacement and dispossession Palestinians remember as the Nakba. Flight and expulsions had begun earlier and...

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 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...

Egypt and Israel signed an armistice agreement under UN mediation. It ended active fighting between the two forces and set a military line, while the agreement expressly treated the line as...

The agreement between Lebanon and Israel formed one of four 1949 armistices that ended major fighting in the 1948 Palestine war. Like the other agreements, it established a ceasefire framework...

Jordan and Israel signed an armistice under UN mediation. It set a line of separation between their forces but stated that the line was not a political or territorial border. Jordan retained control...