On December 25

On this day in ...

... 1985, an ongoing armed conflict in West Africa, sometimes called the Agacher War because it centered in a resource-rich Agacher Strip between Burkina Faso and Mali, intensified when the troops from the latter country attacked a number of border posts and police stations in the former soon after a dispute over the apparently accidental presence of Burkinabe census agents at refugee camps in Mali. Following failed negotiation efforts by Libya, Nigeria, and the Organization of African Unity, a ceasefire was achieved 5 days after the outbreak of what in Burkina Faso became known as the "Christmas War."

(Prior December 25 posts are here and here.)

On May 26

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), in Colombia, diplomats from that country plus Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela signed the Cartagena Agreement (formally titled the Andean Subregional Integration Agreement) "in order to jointly improve their peoples’ standard of living through integration and economic and social cooperation." Today the subregional organization established by this and related agreements, la Comunidad Andina/the Andean Community (flag at right), has 4 members: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Chile withdrew in 1976, and Venezuela, which had joined in 1973, withdrew in 2006.
... 2001, the Constitutive Act of the African Union entered into force. The agreement, by which the 53-state-party-member African Union (flag at left) replaced the 38-year-old Organization of African Unity as the primary regional organization for the continent, had been adopted at Lomé, Togo, on July 11, 2000.

(Prior May 26 posts are here and here.)

On December 30, ...

... 1964, in Resolution 199, the U.N. Security Council called upon states not to intervene in internal affairs of, and for a ceasefire in, Congo. It further encouraged the Organization of African Unity to press for reconciliation of the conflict. The vote was 10 in favor, with France abstaining.
... 1960, U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, was born in Keene, New Hampshire.
... 533, foundational works of law, the Digest and the Institutes, or Elements, of the Roman Law, came into effect. Complementing the the Code of Justinian, or Corpus Juris Civilis, the works were the result of a multiyear effort to codify the law of the Roman Empire.

On May 25, ...

... 1993, the U.N. Security Council adopted the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, empowered to adjudicate charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide arising out of the decade's war in the Balkans. Conflict persisted well after establishment of the ICTY; indeed, on the same day in 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army shelled the "safe area" of Tuzla, killing 71 Bosnians and injuring 150 more.

... 1963, a summit conference of 32 African leaders in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ended with the founding of the Organization of African Unity, whose Charter established a regional body pledged to work for betterment of African states and an end to white minority rule in any African state. Nearly 20 years later, in 2002, the OAU would be superseded by the African Union, a new regional organization.

... 1960, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Dem./Farmer/Labor-Minn.) was born in Plymouth, Minnesota.