League of Nations founded
The first worldwide organisation to keep the peace
On 10 January 1920 the Covenant of the League of Nations, created after the First World War with its headquarters in Geneva, came into force. The League was meant to settle disputes peacefully, but the United States never joined and it failed to stop Japanese, Italian and German aggression in the 1930s. The United Nations replaced it in 1946.
Wikipedia (English) · 20th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 15 years earlier
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 1 year earlier
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 8 years later
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 13 years later
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 16 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917 October Revolution — 3 years earlier
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 3 years earlier
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 9 years later
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 16 years later
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 21 years later
Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 12 years earlier
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 12 years earlier
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 5 years earlier
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 4 years earlier
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — 4 years earlier
Africa
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 23 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 16 years earlier
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 2 years later
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 15 years later
Asia
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 9 years earlier
- 1923 Great Kantō earthquake — 3 years later
- 1931 China floods — 11 years later
- 1934–1935 Long March — 14 years later
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 25 years later
Americas
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — 10 years earlier
- 1913 Ford's moving assembly line — 7 years earlier
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 6 years earlier
- 1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — 6 years earlier
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 9 years later
Oceania
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 9 years earlier
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 8 years earlier
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 16 years later
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 21 years later
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 22 years later
Alive at the time
- Thomas Edison (aged 73)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 64)
- Marie Curie (aged 53)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 51)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 50)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 49)
- Winston Churchill (aged 46)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 42)
- Albert Einstein (aged 41)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 39)