United Nations facts

In 1994 in Rwanda. The slaughter of 1 million Tutsi took place in front of the peacekeeping forces, but the UN Security Council banned any intervention. Despite the dramatic appeals by UN units, their requests to authorize the protection of civilians have been rejected.

In New York. The site of the United Nations Headquarters has extraterritoriality status. Journalists, when reporting from the complex, often use "United Nations" rather than "New York" as the identification of their location in recognition of the extraterritoriality.

In Mogadishu. Black Hawk Down is a 2001 American war film based on the 1999 non-fiction book of the same name by Mark Bowden, which in turn is based on the 29-part series of articles published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, chronicling the events of a 1993 raid in Mogadishu by the U.S. military aimed at capturing faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and the ensuing firefight, known as the Battle of Mogadishu.

German. The six official languages of the United Nations are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. The fact that the UN was created by the victorious countries after WWII might have affected the selection, as neither German nor Japanese are included.

Trusteeship Council. The UN Trusteeship Council, one of the principal organs of the United Nations, was established to help ensure that trust territory (most of them territories taken from nations defeated at the end of World War II) were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants. It became obsolete in 1994, when Palau, as the last of the trust territories, gained independence.

Antonio Guterres. António Guterres is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations. He is the ninth Secretary-General, his term began 1 January 2017.