The 1951 Refugee Convention established international refugee rights and state obligations amid mass World War II displacement

A map of WWII refugees and their stories

Trace the paths of different people and families on this interactive map as they made their escape from the Nazi regime. Primary and secondary sources like letters, documents, memoirs and diaries, photos, interviews, and news clippings showed how many found a path to freedom, from the Kindertransport to individual stories.

Learn about the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. This video explains the history, purpose, preamble, and all 30 articles of the UDHR, which established a universal human rights standard for people worldwide.

The 1941 Atlantic Charter was a World War II alliance and model for the UN

The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal 1941 agreement between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, outlining shared goals for a post-World War II world rooted in freedom and self-determination. These ideals later inspired the founding principles of the United Nations.

The United Nations was founded in San Francisco in 1945.

The Rohingya refugee emergency at a glance

This interactive website provides an in-depth dive into the Rohingya refugee emergency. According to the UNHCR, the influx of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh is one of the largest and fastest-growing refugee crises in decades. Since 2017, an...

Roosevelt chaired more than 3,000 hours of debate to produce the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Roosevelt led the drafting committee for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guiding representatives from 18 nations through debate on conflicting ideas about rights, government, and citizenship. The General Assembly unanimously adopted the final document in December 1948.

See a visual record of how Roosevelt helped build the United Nations

When President Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to the first US delegation to the UN in 1946, her male colleagues assigned her to a minor committee, assuming she would play a minor role. In the end, she became one of the delegation's most effective negotiators—and chaired the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The 1924 Immigration Act established national-origin quotas favoring certain regions

The Johnson-Reed Act established stringent national-origin quotas favoring northern and Western Europeans while restricting immigration from other regions. This article chronicles the act's origins, its implications, and subsequent efforts to overturn these restrictions.

How Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill shaped the postwar world

The Yalta Conference was a pivotal 1945 meeting between Allied leaders that helped shape the postwar global order and laid the groundwork for the founding of the United Nations.

The treaty that ended the First World War laid the groundwork for the Second.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 speech framed World War II as a global fight for universal rights

Eleven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt outlined four fundamental freedoms that, in his words, people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy—speech, worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The formation of the UN elevated the US on the world stage

This podcast episode of "To the Best of My Ability" from the National WWII Museum goes behind the scenes of the United Nations' founding from the American perspective. It explores how FDR's vision for global peace took shape, how Truman carried it forward, and how Eleanor Roosevelt helped define human rights—set against the backdrop of wartime diplomacy, Cold War tensions, and the San Francisco Conference, where the UN Charter was signed.

What are the human rights issues facing the world today?

This video debates the modern relevance of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The world has seen multiple examples of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity since the document was signed over 70 years ago. Now, many...

President Harry Truman appointed Roosevelt as one of the first US delegates to the United Nations

After FDR's death in 1945, Roosevelt joined the delegation to the newly established United Nations. She was the only woman among the General Assembly delegates and was unanimously elected to chair the UN Commission on Human Rights.

What happened to the Vietnamese refugees who wanted to return home?

Not all who fled Vietnam at the end of the war wanted to be resettled in the US. But those who returned faced an unwelcoming government. This article follows one man's attempt to reunite with his family.

Before 1965, US immigration law relied on nationality-based bans and quotas.

Hear Eleanor Roosevelt speak about human rights

On International Human Rights Day, Roosevelt addressed a TV audience to explain the importance of the Declaration of Human Rights. She discusses her work and plans to spread information about the United Nations' efforts.

Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people born in the United States and required states to provide equal legal protection to all.

The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 made religious liberty a formal US foreign policy priority

Congress enacted the International Religious Freedom Act to make promoting religious freedom abroad a stated goal of US foreign policy. The law established an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom and mandated that the State Department report annually on the status of religious freedom.

The Bretton Woods conference in 1944 created the foundations of the modern global economy

In July 1944, 44 nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create a new postwar economic order. The conference led to the creation of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development—now known as the World Bank.

Congress regrets discriminatory laws targeting Asian immigrants

In 2011, Congress expressed regrets about discriminatory laws that targeted Asian immigrants, such as the 1875 Page Act. Click here to read one of the twin bills and learn more about the laws in question.

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished national-origin quotas and transformed the demographics of America

Following decades of citizens pressing for reform, President Johnson signed legislation abolishing national-origin quotas, enabling increased immigration from Asia and Africa. The LBJ Presidential Library features photos, videos, audio clips, and text from the 1965 signing ceremony.

A timeline of US immigration laws

The United States began regulating immigration soon after it won independence from Great Britain, and the laws since enacted have reflected the politics and migrant flows of the times. Here's a timeline of key immigration laws from 1790 to 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.

193 nations are members of the United Nations

The UN's Member States webpage provides an alphabetical list of all 193 member countries, along with the exact dates they were admitted. Take a look at how the UN has expanded over time and understand each nation's place in the global organization.

The first H-1 visa was created in 1952

Congress established the original H-1 visa in 1952 through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to let US employers temporarily hire foreign professionals of "distinguished merit and ability" when qualified American workers were unavailable—a precursor to today's H-1B program.

Since World War II, formal declarations of war and peace treaties have become increasingly rare, replaced by cease-fires, authorizations of force, and "special military operations."

Watch the historic treaty signing that established NATO in 1949

NATO was created with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, in Washington, DC. The clip embedded in the webpage includes a newsreel with an excerpt from US President Harry Truman’s speech celebrating the historic day.

View when each UN member signed the Montreal Protocol

Adopted in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting substances, the agreement achieved universal ratification by all 197 UN member states, making it the first and only such international treaty in the UN's history.

The threat of nuclear annihilation reshaped global diplomacy

The first use of atomic weapons introduced the possibility of a war with no survivors. This article examines how nuclear fear shaped Cold War diplomacy and continues to influence international relations today.

What is the Responsibility to Protect?

This website provides an in-depth overview of the Responsibility to Protect. An important global principle, R2P seeks to safeguard populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The website’s ‘What is...

Birthright citizenship guarantees US citizenship to anyone born on US soil

Rooted in the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship prevents the creation of a permanent noncitizen class by granting citizenship at birth, but it has become a focal point of modern political efforts to restrict immigration.

The treaty's Article 5 requires mutual defense, but not necessarily military action.

How failures at Versailles Conference led to more racial inequality

Suffering a pandemic and the aftermath of a war that killed 50 million, the world in 1920 faced a turning point as it negotiated a new political order. As today, the key issue was racial inequality.

The world rapidly decolonized after World War II, with roughly a hundred new countries emerging between 1945 and 1989.

Decolonization isn't complete, as nearly 2 million people were living in UN-designated non-self-governing territories as of 2023.

Amnesty International’s fight for women’s rights

Amnesty International’s “Women’s Rights” page looks at the history of women’s rights, what women’s rights actually are, and what Amnesty is doing to protect women and girls. Women and girls still face discrimination on the basis of sex...

Roughly 60,000 people serve 11 UN peacekeeping missions

One of the UN’s primary roles is peacekeeping—deploying personnel to conflict zones to maintain stability and protect civilians. The Better World Campaign’s page on UN peacekeeping offers a comprehensive overview of these missions, highlighting their global reach and the involvement of over 2 million personnel from 125 countries across 71 operations.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

This interactive tool from the National Constitution Center allows you to compare constitutional rights globally, highlighting which countries have adopted protections similar to those in the US Constitution—and how shared principles manifest in different legal forms around the world.

The First Amendment established religious freedom as a constitutional right—a safeguard no other nation had before

Europe had limited religious tolerance for centuries, but always as a privilege granted by rulers who could revoke it. The First Amendment in the United States was unique for the time: It banned the government from interfering with religion, making religious freedom a permanent constitutional limit on state power.

FIFA was formed in 1904 and held its first tournament in 1930

In 1930, the first World Cup was held in Uruguay after the Olympics refused to allow professional soccer players to play in the 1932 games. The host country made it to the final of the 13-team event, playing against Argentina. Watch this remastered film of the 1930 match with Uruguay defeating Argentina 4-2 in front of 68,000 screaming fans at the newly opened Estadio Centenario.

Track the changes in US immigration law throughout history

This interactive timeline tracks the development of US immigration law, overlaid with time-series data on percentages of the foreign-born population. Explore how each major policy development correlated with immigration levels, revealing the relationship between legislation and demographic change.

Key milestones in the history of the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization, a UN agency founded in 1948, was first proposed at the 1945 UN Conference to coordinate global health efforts. This interactive timeline marks the WHO’s 75th anniversary with major public health milestones.

The Cannes Film Festival was created as a response to fascism

Initially called the International Film Festival, Cannes was created as an alternative to the Venice Film Festival, which French diplomat Philippe Erlanger believed had been politicized by the influence of Hitler and Mussolini.

The UN's primary goal is to promote peace and cooperation

The UN's self-proclaimed mission is to promote peace, protect human rights, and tackle global challenges like poverty and climate change. The About Us page on the UN's website is a good entry point to understand how this international organization works and its impact in today's world.

The UN’s 1990s peacekeeping mission in Rwanda failed to prevent a genocide

During a 100-day period in 1994, nearly 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians were murdered, a tragedy that exemplified the limitations of the UN’s ability to protect populations from mass killing.

Where did all the refugees from the Mount Vesuvius eruption end up?

Archaeologists have found evidence of about 2,000 of Pompeii and Herculaneum's estimated combined population of 15,000. This article explores what happened to the remaining 13,000 people. Archaeologist Steven Tuck has proposed that the refugees fled the cities as volcanic activity increased, likely resettling elsewhere with family and friends. There's also evidence that the Roman Empire cared for many refugees fleeing Mount Vesuvius.

Trump's 2025 asylum suspension departed from a policy framework in place since 1980

In January 2025, President Trump issued an executive order suspending the asylum program and halting application processing at the southern border. This represents a departure from recent American asylum policy traditions and international humanitarian commitments.

The 1956 Suez crisis was one of the earliest tests of the rules-based order

When Britain, France, and Israel secretly invaded Egypt, the Eisenhower administration supported UN resolutions condemning the invasion and called for a ceasefire—publicly criticizing its closest allies to uphold the principle that force should not be used to resolve international disputes.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom monitors and reports on religious persecution

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal commission that tracks religious freedom conditions worldwide and provides policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and discrimination nationwide

The Civil Rights Act, signed into law in 1964, prohibited racial segregation in public accommodations and ended discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment, while also strengthening protections in education. It established protections enforced across federally funded programs.

The League of Nations was the predecessor to the UN—and the US never joined

The League of Nations—established in 1920 after World War I—was the first global organization aimed at maintaining world peace. Although US President Woodrow Wilson championed its creation, the United States never joined.