UN | Adejokeiyabadan's Blog

April 7, 1994

Genocide in Rwanda began. Over the following 90 days at least a half million people were killed by their countrymen, principally Hutus killing Tutsis.

This day is commemorated annually with prayer vigils in Rwanda.
Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Rwanda, a tiny African nation formerly a Belgian colony, had warned of impending slaughter, but was ordered not to attempt to intervene.
PBS interview with General Dallaire, what he knew and what he watched happen
From the background to the aftermath of the genocide

from the Peace Pledge Union

@iyabadan on Twitter

This day in #History
October 23rd

1927 – Town of Netanya Israel founded by Nathan
Straus

1946 – UN General Assembly 2 nd session convenes (1 st NYC- Flushing Meadows )

1947 – NAACP petition on racism, “An Appeal to the World” presented to UN

1947 – Husband & wife Dr Carl Cori & Dr Gerty Cori are 1 st spouses to be awarded joint Nobel Prizes

1953 – France grants Laos ‘ sovereignty

1953 – German FR applies to NATO

1954 – Britain , England, France & USSR agree to end occupation of Germany

1954 – German FR joins NATO

1954 – Pakistan governor- general Ghoelan
Mohammed disbands parliament

56 – Revolt against Stalinist policies begins in
Hungary

1956 – Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation . (The Hungarian Revolution is crushed on November 4)

1958 – De Gaulle offers Algerians defiance “peace of the brave ”

1958 – Soviet novelist Boris Pasternak, wins Nobel Prize for Literature

1973 – UN ‘s revised International Telecommunication Convention adopted

1977 – Panamanians vote 2 :1 to approve new Canal treaties

1977 – Paleontologist Elso Barghoorn announces
that 34- billion-year- old one -celled fossils, the
earliest life forms , had been discovered

1978 – China & Japan formally ends 4 decades of
dissension

1989 – Hungary proclaims itself a republic & declares communist rule ended

1998 – Israeli – Palestinian Conflict: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a “land for
peace ” agreement.

2001 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army of Northern Ireland commences disarmament after peace talks .

2001 – Apple releases the iPod.

2009 – The United Nations ” Rotterdam Rules ”
convention regulating international maritime carriage of goods is ratified with its twentieth signature

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS

1940 – Pelé [Edson Arantes do Nascimento] , Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Brazilian footballer (Player of the Century – 1281 goals in 1363 games)

1942 – Michael Crichton, Chicago, novelist (Andromeda Strain , Congo, Looker), (d . 2008)

1951 – Fatmir Sejdiu, President of Kosovo

1991 – Princess Mako of Akishino of Japan

FAMOUS DEATHS

1928 – F A Alphonse Aulard , French historian, dies

1929 – Thomas F Tout, historian (Manch school of
historiography), dies at 74

1957 – Christian Dior, French designer
(New Look ), dies at 52 of a heart attack

1986 – Edward A Doisy Sr, discoverer of vitamin K
(Nobel 1943 ), dies at 92

2011 – John McCarthy , American computer scientist
and pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence ,
inventor of the Lisp programming language .( b . 1927