INTRODUCTION TO TIMELINE:
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) welcomes you to our 1945
timeline, created in 2020 by some WILPF US members. During that time of staying at home
because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we figured some of our “spare” time could be put to good
use by reflecting on two of the most pivotal events in world history on their 75th anniversaries:
the founding of the United Nations and the exploding of an atomic bomb in close proximity to
where tens of thousands of American citizens lived in south-central New Mexico  and the
dropping of A-bombs on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ever since 1945, that most
dramatic year at the end of WWII, people, governments and civilization itself have been faced
with a momentous dilemma: whether to choose law and cooperation over power and
domination.
 
Five years have passed since we created the 75th anniversary timeline and now we have
reached the 80th and our 1945 timeline facts have not changed. We invite you to click on the
dates in this timeline to read some observations by today’s historians and chroniclers of the last
century. We held 7 webinars associated with the timeline back in 2020, they are represented by
small purple circles in the timeline, and you can reach the video recording of each webinar by
consulting the list showing at the end of this Introduction. The small purple circles are not active.
We present several perspectives on the hopes people and organizations held, in 1945, for the
future of a global organization committed to maintaining world peace. A word of caution,
however:  with the advantage of hindsight and declassified documents, we now know that most
of those who attended the founding conference of the UN were no match for the world’s most
powerful men, whose main objective was to enhance their rule and dominate the post-war
peace.
 
Seen from this perspective, the dropping of the atom bomb was not an aberration but instead a
logical continuum in a drive for enhanced militarism to secure future markets for profits, not for
peace. The glaring inequalities that developed over the previous 75 years were finally exposed
for all to see during the 2020 Corona virus pandemic. The need for world peace and
international cooperation is more pressing than ever. As of mid-June 2025 there are ongoing
wars between Russia and Ukraine, between Iran and Israel, and major civil wars in Myanmar,
Syria and Sudan. The questions are: who will prevail and how can WE prevail on the side of
peace and freedom?

List of the recordings of the 7 webinars we held between May 17th and December 4th, 2020

Here is the link to our YOUTUBE playlist :Timeline: UN and A-Bomb" -
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNz1wyPMccmFv3KYIzVhyWJpxLNTkIAs

 

Here are the actual YOUTUBE links to the recordings of the seven webinars we held in 2020

 

05/17

A Discussion with VT anti-nuclear activist Martha Hennessy facing jail time, and lawyer Bill Quigley,
discussing the importance of the Necessity Defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJgucjMrvA

 

06/28
Join us for a webinar in celebration of the signing of the United Nations Charter & an evaluation of the UN's history from its turbulent beginnings to now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtZCAxd4oM

 

07/13
A webinar: Tina Cordova and Joni Arends will speak about their most nuclear contaminated state: New
Mexico.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvlx53SY_SI

 

08/09
Webinar with Hiroshima survivor Hideko Tamura Snider, author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYzuoGuqg34

 

09/20
Obstacles to Nuclear Abolition: Telling the Truth About the Relationship between the US and Russia. A
conversation with Alice Slater on Zoom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7f9tOHEyWE
10/22
Discussion on Zoom; 75 Years On, WILPF at the U.N.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ZVrFfxhgc (part 1)
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXgCToU9yi0 (part 2)

 

12/04
AFRICOM and Human Rights in Africa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftTfJmU-qsg

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