UN adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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 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 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...

The Syrian-Israeli agreement completed the series of 1949 armistices that stopped major fighting around former Mandatory Palestine. The line created a military ceasefire, not a peace treaty or final...