Armenian Genocide

Date

1915–1916 (beginning 24 April 1915)

Category

Social & demographic

Region

Middle East / Anatolia (Ottoman Empire)

Era

Modern

Significance

Beginning on 24 April 1915, when Ottoman authorities arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople, the Ottoman government carried out the systematic destruction of its Armenian population during World War I.

Armenian men were frequently killed outright, while women, children, and the elderly were forced on death marches into the Syrian desert, where many died from massacre, starvation, exposure, and disease; others, particularly women and children, were forcibly Islamised. Scholarly estimates of the death toll range from roughly 600,000 to as many as 1.2 million. The genocide, directed largely by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress, destroyed Armenian communities that had lived in Anatolia for millennia. It is widely regarded by historians as one of the first modern genocides and influenced later legal concepts of genocide. The events remain the subject of international recognition disputes, with the Republic of Turkey rejecting the genocide characterisation.

Empires active in 1915–1916 (beginning 24 April 1915)

• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• German Empire
  1871 CE – 1918 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE

Related social & demographic events

• Influenza pandemic of 1918–1920
  1918–1920
• The Holocaust and the 'Final Solution'
  1941–1945
• Bengal Famine of 1943
  1943–1944
• Emancipation of the serfs in Russia
  3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
• The Great Irish Famine
  1845–1852
• UK Representation of the People Act enfranchises women
  6 February 1918

Further reading

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The wider story

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

Global best-seller on how our species, its populations and societies remade the world.

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