The Organisation of African Unity is founded
The Pan-African dream takes shape; 25 May becomes Africa Day
On 25 May 1963 leaders of 32 independent African states signed the charter of the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa. Kwame Nkrumah called for a single African government, but most chose a union of sovereign states pledged to finish off colonialism and apartheid. The founding date is celebrated as Africa Day, and in 2002 the OAU was replaced by the African Union.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1939–1945 World War II — 24 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 16 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 15 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 14 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 17 years later
Europe
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 22 years earlier
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 10 years earlier
- 1957 Treaty of Rome — 6 years earlier
- 1961 Berlin Wall built — 2 years earlier
- 1968 May 1968 in France — 5 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 22 years earlier
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 21 years earlier
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 18 years earlier
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 6 years earlier
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 2 years earlier
Middle East
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 15 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 16 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 17 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 18 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 10 years earlier
- 1958–1962 Great Leap Forward — 5 years earlier
- 1964 First Shinkansen high-speed railway — 1 year later
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 12 years later
Americas
- 1960 Great Chilean earthquake — 3 years earlier
- 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — 1 year earlier
- 1969 Moon landing — 6 years later
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 7 years later
- 1983 Birth of the Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP — 20 years later
Oceania
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 22 years earlier
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 21 years earlier
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 9 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 4 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Winston Churchill (aged 89)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 82)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 74)
- Mao Zedong (aged 70)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 45)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (aged 34)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 33)
- Yuri Gagarin (aged 29)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 79)
- Anna Akhmatova (aged 74)