Julie Knutson - Global Citizenship: Engage in the Politics of a Changing World

539 BCE: Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon. The so-called Cyrus Cylinder often considered the first human rights documentinforms Babylonians of their rights.

circa 500 BCE: Confucius advances the Golden RuleDo not do unto others what you do not want done to yourselfin China.

circa 1200 CE: The Mandingo Empire in West Africa establishes the Manden Charter, an orally transmitted constitution. The charter provides for a number of rightseducation, food security, freedom of expression, and the abolition of slavery by raid.

1215 CE: Aristocrats in England force King John to sign the Magna Carta. This document limits the kings power and guarantees certain rights to royal subjects.

Eighteenth century: Enlightenment ideas spread. These are based on the belief that humans possess reason and can create better societies.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Abolitionists work within and across national boundaries to end the Atlantic slave trade.

1864: The First Geneva Convention sets international law to protect victims of war and establishes the Red Cross as an aid organization. The Geneva Convention is revised in 1906, 1929, and 1949.

1899 and 1907: International delegates come together in the Netherlands for the Hague Conventions. Global standards are set for the laws of war and handling disarmament and war crimes.

1920: The League of Nations is established as a diplomatic forum to resolve conflicts and avoid war. The organization also assists with early refugee crises, including the rescue of Armenian genocide survivors.

1930: Gandhi leads the Salt March, a nonviolent protest against colonial occupation in India.

1939 to 1945: More than 6 million Jewish people are murdered in the Holocaust. Homosexuals, people with disabilities, and Roma and Polish people are also killed in mass numbers.

1944: The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are established.

1945: The United Nations (UN) is established as an intergovernmental organization to prevent future wars and promote international cooperation.

1948: The UN adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which lists fundamental human rights.

19481960: African and Asian countries decolonize, asserting their rights to independence from European rule.

1960s1970s: Civil rights movements worldwide uphold that all people should be guaranteed rights, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

1986: The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights takes effect after seven years of development.

1989: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is adopted.

1993: The European Union is established, increasing trade and travel between European states.

2000: The UN releases the Millennium Development Goals.

2015: The UN adopts the Paris Agreement to address climate change.

2015: The UN releases the Sustainable Development Goals, which are 17 global priorities to be met by 2030.

2019: Global youth activism around climate change surges, with #FridaysfortheFuture and the Youth Climate Strike movement.

2020: The UN releases results from its first Gender Social Norms Index, which show that nearly 90 percent of people worldwide hold biases against women.

March 2020: The World Health Organization declares the coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak a pandemic.

May 25, 2020: George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, dies at the hands of Minneapolis, Minnesota, police. Video footage shows a white officer pinning a handcuffed Floyd to the ground with a knee on his neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd repeatedly cries out, I cant breathe. Outrage and waves of protest calling out racial profiling, bias, and violence in policing ensue in cities worldwide.