The League of Nations was an international organization founded after
the First World War at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The
League's goals included disarmament; preventing war through collective
security; settling disputes between countries through negotiation and
diplomacy; and improving global welfare. The League was a government
of governments, with the role of settling disputes between individual
nations in a an open and legalist forum. The League lacked an armed
force of its own and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its
resolutions, which they were often very reluctant to do. The League
ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the fascist
powers in 1930s. The onset of the Second World War made it clear that
the League had failed in its primary purpose—to avoid any future world
war. The United Nations effectively replaced it after World War II and
inherited a number of agencies and organisations founded by the
League.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1513:
Giovanni de' Medici became Pope Leo X.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X)
1845:
M?ori forces led by chiefs Kawiti and Hone Heke destroyed the British
settlement of Kororareka in New Zealand, beginning the Flagstaff War.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Maori_War)
1966:
In power since World War II, President Sukarno of Indonesia was ousted
by Suharto and the military.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukarno)
1990:
The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ceased to exist when
Lithuania proclaimed the restitution of independence from the Soviet
Union.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lithuania)
2004:
The March 11th Attacks: A series of terrorist bombings on commuter
trains killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 in Madrid.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_attacks)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn
from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams)