United Nations

The United Nations population commission mandated to pursue an aggressive antinatalist policy to combat overpopulation.

Patrice Lumumba , anti-colonial leader and Prime Minister of the newly independent Congo for less than a year, was executed in mysterious circumstances at Katanga.

US President John F. Kennedy (the youngest ever elected, and the first Roman Catholic) delivered his inspirational inaugural address.

Dag Hammarskjöld , Secretary-General of the United Nations , was killed in a plane crash near Ndola in the then Northern Rhodesia

War broke out between Turks and Greeks in Cyprus (the two ethnic groups on the island).

Anti-Greek riots broke out in Istanbul in response to the inter-ethnic crisis in Cyprus. These resulted in the expulsion of Greek nationals from the city on two days' notice.

The United Nations Conference on Population was held.

General Nasser of Egypt invaded the Sinai peninsula, forcing out the United Nations Emergency Force which held it.

The first Earth Day was observed across the U.S., where approximately twenty million people rallied against environmental degradation.

The CommunistPeople's Republic of China was belatedly allowed to join the United Nations (Taiwan having been first expelled).

The United Nations International Conference on Population and Development met in Bucharest, Romania, to mark World Population Year.

This year was designated International Women's Year, though the intiative of Helvi Sipila of the United Nations .

Pol Pot was installed by his Communist guerilla Khmer Rouge forces as totalitarian ruler of Cambodia (which had already suffered severe bombing by the USA in 1969 and invasion by Vietnam in 1970).

The United Nations sponsored the first World Conference on women, held in Mexico City to mark the occasion of International Women's Year.

The United Nations recognized and supported the observance of International Women's Day (which had been instituted in 1911).