Vivian Lin January 2, 2014
Period 6 Global

The Armenian Genocide occurred at the end of World War I as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The Turkish majority killed more than a million Armenian minorities. Tension between the Turks and the Armenians arose during the late 1800s. This tension was prompted by a desire for more civil rights for the Armenians, which the sultan viewed as a threat. In the mid 1800's. armenians although were tolerated by the Turks, were seen as second class citizens and were called infedels. Armenians, Greeks and Jews, were ofthen made to wear clthing that would identify them as non-turkish. When Europe was on the onset of WWI, Turkey had lost a majority of its land within a few years. They feared that they could possibliy lose most or all of Eastern Turkey thay decided to kill the Armenian intellectuals. Turkish officials at that time believed that there would be no Armenian problem if there were no Armenians. Therefore they began to send people on "relocation" walks into the desert. Gathering Armenians from all over Anatolia, Armenians were sent began to march into the deserts of Syria. This caused two-thirds of the Armenian population to decrease.
In 1915, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Though reports vary, most sources agree that there were about 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the time of the massacre. By the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations finally ended, some 1.5 million of Turkey’s Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country. Today, most historians call this event a genocide--a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people. However, the Turkish government does not acknowledge the enormity or scope of these events. Despite pressure from Armenians and social justice advocates throughout the world, it is still illegal in Turkey to talk about what happened to Armenians during this era.
There were many events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. On Feburary 21, 1914,A Turkish boycott of Armenian businesses is declared