British colonial government declares emergency in Kenya

After four years of revolution, military conflict, and diplomacy, the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to the Republic of the United States of Indonesia. The transfer ended Dutch colonial authority...

India’s constitution came into force and the country became a republic, ending the British monarch’s role as head of state. Constitutional independence followed mass anticolonial struggles and the...

North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel and attacked the Republic of Korea. The war followed the division of a peninsula liberated from Japanese colonial rule into rival governments under...

Libya became independent after being an Italian colony and then administered by Britain and France following the Second World War. A 1949 UN resolution directed that the country become independent and...

The Free Officers Movement seized key positions in Cairo and announced the revolution, forcing King Farouk to abdicate days later. The officers opposed corruption, social inequality, and Egypt’s...

Military representatives of the Korean People’s Army, Chinese People’s Volunteers, and UN Command signed an armistice after three years of war. It created a demilitarized zone and stopped...

After 56 days of siege, French forces at Dien Bien Phu surrendered to the Viet Minh. The victory followed years of Vietnamese resistance to France’s attempt to restore colonial rule after Japan’s...

The Geneva Conference concluded agreements ending the First Indochina War. Vietnam was regrouped on either side of a provisional military demarcation line near the 17th parallel, with nationwide...

The National Liberation Front issued a proclamation and coordinated attacks across Algeria, calling for national independence and an end to French colonial rule. The uprising followed decades of...

Twenty-nine Asian and African governments opened the Bandung Conference to discuss peace, sovereignty, economic cooperation, racism, and colonialism. The gathering gave recently independent states a...