December 11, 1946 The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to provide health and rehabilitation to children living in countries devastated by World War II. What does UNICEF do today? |
| December 11, 1946 The United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed Resolution 95 affirming the principles of international law recognized by the charter and judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. These Principles of International Law were formulated and published by the International Law Commission on July 29, 1950: These Principles of International Law were formulated and published by the International Law Commission on July 29, 1950: Read the UN Resolution 95 (pdf) |
| December 11, 1961 Two U.S. Army air cavalry helicopter companies arrived in Vietnam, including 33 Shawnee H-21C helicopters and 425 ground and flight crewmen. They were to be used to airlift South Vietnamese Army troops into combat, the first direct military combat involvement of U.S. military personnel.President Kennedy had sent them to bolster the U.S. advisors, in the country since the 1950s, in light of the inability of the Government of Vietnam’s armed forces to resist the Viet Cong insurgency movement and the Army of the Republic of [North] Vietnam.  Shawnee helicopter |
| December 11, 1961 A U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawed the use of disorderly conduct statutes as grounds for arresting African Americans sitting-in at segregated public facilities to obtain equal service. The case began in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a group of negro Southern University students bought some items then sat at the lunch counter of Kress Department Store. Their polite requests to order food were ignored because the lunch counter was only for the use of whites, and police arrived to arrest them. Convicted of “disturbing the peace,” they were expelled from Southern University and barred from all public colleges and universities in the state of Louisiana. The Court overturned their convictions because there was no evidence indicating a breach of the peace. The decision in Garner v. Louisiana |
| December 11, 1972 New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk (Labour Party) announced withdrawal of his country’s troops from Vietnam and a phase-out of his country’s draft just three days after taking office.  Prime Minister Norman Kirk  Anti-War demo Parliament Buildings in Wellington, 1969 3,890 New Zealand military personnel had served there, suffering 37 dead and 187 wounded. This had given rise to a large and vocal anti-war movement. History of the anti-war movement in New Zealand |
| December 11, 1980 President Carter signed a law creating a $1.6 billion environmental Superfund to pay for cleanup of chemical spills and toxic waste dumps. Do You Live Near Toxic Waste? See 1,317 of the Most Polluted Spots in the U.S. |
| December 11, 1984 More than 20,000 women turned out for an anti-nuclear demonstration at Greenham Common Air Base in England, where U.S. nuclear-armed cruise missiles were deployed. Some tried to rip down the fence surrounding the base.  Poster of Broken Missile taped to the fence of Greenham Common by a protester, 1982 A Greenham Peace Camp scrapbook |
| December 11, 1992 The three major U.S. television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) agreed on joint standards to limit entertainment violence by the start of the following season. Violence in the Media – Psychologists Help Protect Children from Harmful Effects |
| December 11, 1994 In the largest Russian military offensive since its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks crossed the border into the Muslim republic of Chechnya. Just two weeks prior, a Russian covert operation to undermine the government in Grozny, the capital, had been foiled and Dzhokhar Dudaev, Chechnya’s first elected president, had threatened to have the perpetrators executed.The Chechens had declared their independence from the Commonwealth of Independent States, comprising Russia and most of the countries previously part of the Soviet Union. Chechnya had been a Russian colony since 1859, and in 1943 Josef Stalin deported the population en masse, their return to their homeland not allowed until 1957.  Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who ordered the invasion, would not deal with Dudaev, and had raised him to the rank of chief enemy, ignoring Chechen-Russian history. The main attack was halted by the deputy commander of Russian ground forces, Colonel-General Eduard Vorobyov, who resigned in protest, stating that he would not attack fellow Russians. Yeltsin’s advisor on nationality affairs, Emil Pain, and Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Boris Gromov (esteemed hero of the Soviet-Afghan War), also resigned in protest of the invasion, as did Major-General Borys Poliakov. More than 800 professional soldiers and officers refused to take part in the operation. Of these, 83 were convicted by military courts, and the rest were discharged. |
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