The beginning of the end of apartheid in South Africa - 6th Nov 1962

United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls on all member states to terminate economic and military relations with the country. Following the 1960 massacre of unarmed demonstrators at Sharpeville near Johannesburg, South Africa, the international movement to end apartheid gained wide international support. However, few major Western powers, nor South Africa's other main trading powers, supported a full economic or military embargo against the country. Nonetheless, U.N. opposition grew, and in 1973 a U.N. resolution declared apartheid a crime against humanity. In 1974, South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly.

On This Day

1945: U.N. Charter signed

Delegates from nations around the world sign the United Nations Charter on June 26, 1945. Even before celebrations for the end of World War II in Europe commenced, delegates from 51 nations began a 63-day conference in San Francisco to establish the United Nations, an organization designed to help ensure future world peace. The United States proposed establishing the world body in 1942, and the groundwork was laid at an Allied conference held in Washington in 1944. In April 1945, the international conference convened in California, culminating in the signing of the Charter. The first meeting of the U.N. General Assembly occurred in London early the next year.