U.N. condemns apartheid

The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa's racist apartheid policies and calls on all member states to terminate economic and military relations with the country. Following the 1960 massacre of unarmed demonstrators at Sharpeville near Johannesburg, South Africa, the international movement to end apartheid gained wide international support. However, few major Western powers, nor South Africa's other main trading powers, supported a full economic or military embargo against the country. Nonetheless, U.N. opposition grew, and in 1973 a U.N. resolution declared apartheid a crime against humanity. In 1974, South Africa was suspended from the General Assembly.