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

_______________________________ 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)

_____________________ 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)