Native name	Société des Nations Sociedad de Naciones
Conventional long name	League of Nations
Common name	League of Nations
noautocat	yes
Status	International organisation
Continent	World
Event held	Geneva Switzerland.
Era	Interwar period
Event start	Treaty of Versailles
Year start	1919
Date start	28 June
Event end	Liquidation
Year end	1946
Date end	18 April
S1	United Nations
Flag s1	Flag of the United Nations (1945-1947).svg
Image coat	Symbol of the League of Nations.svg
Symbol type	1939–1941 semi-official emblem
Image map caption	Anachronous world map in 1920–1945, showing the League of Nations and the world
Capital	Geneva
Common languages	English, French and Spanish
Title leader	Secretary-General
Leader1	Sir James Eric Drummond
Year leader1	1920–1933
Leader2	Joseph Avenol
Year leader2	1933–1940
Leader3	Seán Lester
Year leader3	1940–1946
Event start	Treaty of Versailles
Date start	28 June
Event end	Dissolved
Date end	20 April
Event1	First meeting
Date event1	16 January 1920
Footnotes	The headquarters were based at the Palace of Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland }}

The League of Nations (LON) was an intergovernmental organisation founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War, and was the precursor to the United Nations. The League was the first permanent international security organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing war through collective security, disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Other issues in this and related treaties included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, trafficking in persons and drugs, arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. When, during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that "the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. In May 1933, Franz Bernheim, a Jew, complained that his rights as a minority were being violated by the German administration of Upper Silesia, which induced the Germans to defer enforcement of the anti-Jewish laws in the region for several years until the relevant treaty expired in 1937, whereupon they simply refused to renew the League's authority further and renewed anti-Jewish persecution. Hitler claimed these clauses violated Germany's sovereignty. Germany withdrew from the League, soon to be followed by many other aggressive powers.

The onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and inherited a number of agencies and organisations founded by the League.

Origins of the League

The concept of a peaceful community of nations had been outlined as far back as 1795, when Immanuel Kant’s ''Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch'' outlined the idea of a league of nations that would control conflict and promote peace between states. There, Kant argues for establishment of a peaceful world community not in a sense that there be a global government but in the hope that each state would declare itself as a free state that respects its citizens and welcomes foreign visitors as fellow rational beings. It is in this rationalization that a union of free states would promote peaceful society worldwide, therefore there can be a perpetual peace bound by the international community.

International co-operation to promote collective security originated in the Concert of Europe that developed after the Napoleonic Wars in the nineteenth century in an attempt to maintain the ''status quo'' between European states and so avoid war. This period also saw the development of international law with the first Geneva conventions establishing laws about humanitarian relief during war and the international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 governing rules of war and the peaceful settlement of international disputes.

The forerunner of the League of Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), was formed by peace activists William Randal Cremer and Frederic Passy in 1889. The organisation was international in scope with a third of the members of parliament, in the 24 countries with parliaments, serving as members of the IPU by 1914. Its aims were to encourage governments to solve international disputes by peaceful means and arbitration and annual conferences were held to help governments refine the process of international arbitration. The IPU's structure consisted of a Council headed by a President which would later be reflected in the structure of the League.

At the start of the twentieth century two power blocs emerged through alliances between the European Great Powers. It was these alliances that came into effect at the start of the First World War in 1914, drawing all the major European powers into the war. This was the first major war in Europe between industrialized countries and the first time in Western Europe the results of industrialization (for example mass production) had been dedicated to war. The result of this industrial warfare was an unprecedented casualty level with eight and a half million members of armed services dead, an estimated 21 million wounded, and approximately 10 million civilian deaths.

By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the war had had a profound impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe and inflicting psychological and physical damage on the continent. Anti-war sentiment rose across the world; the First World War was described as "the war to end all wars", and its possible causes were vigorously investigated. The causes identified included arms races, alliances, secret diplomacy, and the freedom of sovereign states to enter into war for their own benefit. The perceived remedies to these were seen as the creation of an international organisation whose aim was to prevent future war through disarmament, open diplomacy, international co-operation, restrictions on the right to wage wars, and penalties that made war unattractive to nations.

While the First World War was still underway, a number of governments and groups had already started developing plans to change the way international relations were carried out in order to prevent a repetition of the war. United States President Woodrow Wilson and his advisor Colonel Edward M. House enthusiastically promoted the idea of the League as a means of avoiding any repetition of the bloodshed seen in the First World War, and the creation of the League was a centerpiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace. Specifically the final point provided: "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

Before drafting the specific terms of his peace deal, Wilson recruited a team led by Colonel House to compile whatever information deemed pertinent in assessing Europe’s geo-political situation. In early January, 1918, Wilson summoned House to Washington and the two began hammering out, in complete secrecy, the President’s first address on the League of Nations which was delivered to an unsuspecting Congress on January 8, 1918.

Wilson's final plans for the League were strongly influenced by the South African Prime Minister, Jan Christiaan Smuts. In 1918 Smuts had published a treatise entitled ''The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion''. According to F.S. Crafford's biography on Smuts, Wilson adopted "both the ideas and the style" of Smuts.

On July 8, 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States and embarked on a nation-wide campaign to secure the support of the American people for their country’s entry into the League. On July 10, Wilson addressed the Senate declaring that “a new role and a new responsibility have come to this great nation that we honour and which we would all wish to lift to yet higher levels of service and achievement.” Positive reception, particularly from Republicans, was scarce at best.

The Paris Peace Conference, convened to build a lasting peace after the First World War, approved the proposal to create the League of Nations (, ) on 25 January 1919. The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles. On 28 June 1919, 44 states signed the Covenant, including 31 states which had taken part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict. Despite Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1919, the United States did not join the League. Opposition in the US Senate, particularly from Republican politicians Henry Cabot Lodge and William E. Borah, together with Wilson's refusal to compromise, ensured that the United States would not ratify the Covenant.

The League held its first council meeting in Paris on 16 January 1920, six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force. In November, the headquarters of the League moved to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on 15 November 1920 with representatives from 41 nations in attendance.

Languages and symbols

The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English and Spanish (from 1920). The League considered adopting Esperanto as their working language and actively encouraging its use but neither option was ever adopted. In 1921, there was a proposal by Lord Robert Cecil to introduce Esperanto into state schools of member nations and a report was commissioned to investigate this. When the report was presented two years later it recommended the teaching of Esperanto in schools, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted. The strongest opposition came from the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to protect the French language which he argued was already the international language. This opposition meant the report was accepted apart from the section that approved Esperanto in schools.

The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo. Proposals for adopting an official symbol were made during the League's beginning in 1920, but the member states never reached agreement. When needed, League of Nations organisations used varying logos and flags (or none at all) in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to find a design, which again failed to produce a symbol. One of the reasons for this failure may have been the fear by the member states that the power of the supranational organisation might supersede their own.

Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed stars within a blue pentagon. They symbolized the Earth's five continents and five races. A bow on top and at the bottom, displayed the name in English (''League of Nations'') and French (''Société des Nations''). This flag was used on the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.

The League did have a very active postal department. Large numbers of mailings were made from headquarters, the specialized agencies, and at international conferences. In many cases special envelopes or overprinted postage stamps were used.

Principal organs

The main constitutional organs of the League were: the Assembly; the Council; the Permanent Secretariat (headed by the General Secretary and based in Geneva). It had two essential wings in: the Permanent Court of International Justice; and the International Labour Organisation. The Covenant implied the establishment of auxiliary bodies for various questions of a more or less technical character. Therefore, the League had numerous agencies and commissions.

The relations between the Assembly and the Council were not explicitly defined, and their competencies, with a few exceptions, were much the same. Each body might deal with any matter within the sphere of competence of the League or affecting the peace in the world. Particular questions or tasks might be referred either to the Council or the Assembly. Reference might be passed on from one body to another.

Unanimity had been required for the decisions of both the Assembly and the Council, except in matters of procedure and some other specific cases, such as the admission of new Members. This general regulation concerning unanimity was the recognition of national sovereignty. The League sought solution by consent and not by dictation.

However, in case of the dispute, the consent of the parties to the dispute was not required for unanimity. Where the reference of a dispute was made to the Assembly, a decision required the consent of the majority only of the Assembly, but including all the Members of the Council.

Secretariat

The Permanent Secretariat, established at the seat of the League at Geneva, comprised a body of experts in various spheres under the direction of the General Secretary.

The principle Sections of the Secretariat were: Political; Financial and Economics; Transit; Minorities and Administration (Saar and Danzig); Mandates; Disarmament; Health; Social (Opium and Traffic in Women and Children); Intellectual Cooperation and International Bureaux; Legal; and Information. Each Section was responsible for all official secretarial work related to its particular subject and prepared and organised all meetings and conferences held in that connection.

The staff of the League's secretariat was responsible for preparing the agenda for the Council and Assembly and publishing reports of the meetings and other routine matters, effectively acting as the civil service for the League. The secretariat was often considered to be too small to handle all of the league administrative affairs. For example, the total number of officials classed as members of the Secretariat was 75 in September 1924. The total staff, including all the clerical services, comprised about 400 people.

Assembly

The Assembly consisted of representatives of all Members of the League. Each state was allowed up to three representatives and one vote. The Assembly met in Geneva and, after its initial sessions in 1920, sessions were held once a year in September. A special session of the Assembly might be summoned at the request of a Member, provided a majority of the Members concurred.

The special functions of the Assembly included the admission of new Members, the periodical election on non-permanent Members of the Council, the election with the Council of the judges of the Permanent Court, and the control of the budget. In practice the Assembly had become the general directing force of League activities.

Council

The League Council acted as a type of executive body directing the Assembly's business. The Council began with four permanent members (Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members which were elected by the Assembly for a three year period. The first four non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain. The United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the US Senate voted on 19 March 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League.

The composition of the Council was subsequently changed a number of times. The number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on 22 September 1922, and then to nine on 8 September 1926. Werner Dankwort of Germany pushed for his home country to join the league which they eventually did in 1926. Germany became the fifth permanent member of the Council, giving the Council a total of fifteen members. Later, after Germany and Japan both left the League, the number of non-permanent seats was increased from nine to eleven.

The Council met, on average, five times a year and in extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held between 1920 and 1939.

Other bodies

The League oversaw the Permanent Court of International Justice and several other agencies and commissions created to deal with pressing international problems. These included the Disarmament Commission, the Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Mandates Commission, the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (precursor to UNESCO), the Permanent Central Opium Board, the Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission.

Several of these institutions were transferred to the United Nations after the Second World War; the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice (as the International Court of Justice), and the Health Organization (restructured as the World Health Organization) all became UN institutions.

Permanent Court of International Justice

The Permanent Court of International Justice was provided for by the Covenant, but not established by it. The Council and Assembly established its constitution. Its judges were elected by the Council and Assembly, and its budget was provided by the Assembly. The composition of the Court was of eleven judges and four deputy-judges, elected for nine years. The Court had been competent to hear and to determine any international dispute which the parties concerned submitted to it. The Court might also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or the Assembly. The Court was open to all the nations of the world under certain broad conditions. Questions of fact as well as questions of law might be submitted.

International Labour Organization

The International Labour Organization (ILO) was created in 1919 on the basis of part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles and became part of the League's operations.

The ILO, although having the same Members as the League and subjected to the budget control of the Assembly, was an autonomous organisation with its own Governing Body, its own General Conference and its own Secretariat. Its constitution was different from that of the League: representation had been accorded not only to Governments but to representatives of employers and workers’ organisations.

Its first director was Albert Thomas. The ILO successfully restricted the addition of lead to paint, and convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight hour working week. It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents involving seamen. The organization continued to exist after the end of the League, becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946.

Health Organization

The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing permanent officials of the League, an executive section the General Advisory Council or Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready to be presented to the Council. This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes. The Health Organization also worked successfully with the government of the Soviet Union to prevent typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease.

Committee on Intellectual Cooperation

The League of Nations had devoted serious attention to the question of international intellectual cooperation since its creation. The First Assembly (December 1920) recommended that the Council should take action aiming at international organisation of intellectual work. The Council adopted report presented by the Fifth Committee of the Second Assembly and invited a distinguished Committee on Intellectual Cooperation to meet in Geneva, August 1922.

The Programme of work of the Committee included: enquiry into the conditions of intellectual life, assistance to countries whose intellectual life was endangered, creation of National Committees for intellectual cooperation, cooperation with international intellectual organisations, protection of intellectual property, inter-university cooperation, coordination of bibliographical work and international interchange of publications, and international cooperation in archaeological research.

Permanent Central Opium Board

The League wanted to regulate the drug trade and established the Permanent Central Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and its by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations for the legal international trade in narcotics.

Slavery Commission

The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across the world, and fought forced prostitution. Its main success was through pressing the governments who administered mandated countries to end slavery in those countries. The League secured a commitment from Ethiopia to end slavery as a condition of membership in 1926, and worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-tribal slavery.

It succeeded in gaining the emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organised raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the death rate of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55 to 4 percent. Records were kept to control slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking of women and children.

Commission for Refugees

Led by Fridtjof Nansen, the Commission for Refugees was established on June 27, 1921 to look after the interests of refugees including overseeing their repatriation and, when necessary, resettlement. At the end of the First World War there were two to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout Russia, within two years of the commission's foundation, it had helped 425,000 of them return home. It established camps in Turkey in 1922 to aid the country with a refugee crisis it was dealing with, helping to prevent disease and hunger. It also established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless peoples.

Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women

The Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry into the status of women all over the world. It was formed in April 1938, and dissolved in early 1939. Committee members included Mme. P. Bastid (France), M. de Ruelle (Belgium), Mme. Anka Godjevac (Yugoslavia), Mr. H. C. Gutteridge (Great Britain), Mlle. Kerstin Hesselgren (Sweden), Ms. Dorothy Kenyon (United States), M. Paul Sebastyen (Hungary) and Secretariat Mr. Hugh McKinnon Wood (Great Britain).

Members

Of the League's 42 founding members, 23 (or 24, counting Free France) remained members until it was dissolved in 1946. In the founding year, six other states joined, only two of which remained members throughout the League's existence. An additional 15 countries joined in later years.

The largest number of member states was 58, between 28 September 1934 (when Ecuador joined) and 23 February 1935 (when Paraguay withdrew). At this time, only Costa Rica (22 January 1925), Brazil (14 June 1926), the Empire of Japan (27 March 1933), and Germany (14 October 1933) had withdrawn citing a diplomatic disadvantage due to inferior powers.

The Soviet Union only became a member on 18 September 1934, when it joined to antagonise Germany (which had left the year before), and was expelled from the League on 14 December 1939 for aggression against Finland. In expelling the Soviet Union, the League broke its own norms; only 7 of 15 members of the Council voted for the expulsion (Great Britain, France, Belgium, Bolivia, Egypt, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic), which was not the majority of votes required by the Covenant to do so. Three of these members were chosen as members of the Council the day before the voting (South Africa, Bolivia, and Egypt). This was one of the League's final acts before it practically ceased functioning due to the Second World War.

Egypt was the last state to join the League (26 May 1937). The first member to withdraw from the League after its founding was Costa Rica on 22 January 1925; having joined on 16 December 1920, this also makes it the member to have most quickly withdrawn from the League after joining. The last member to withdraw from the League before its dissolution was Luxembourg on 30 August 1942. Brazil was the first founding member to leave (14 June 1926) and Haiti was the last (April 1942).

Iraq, which joined in 1932, was the first member of the league that had previously been a League of Nations Mandate.

Mandates

At the end of the First World War, the Allied Powers were confronted with the question of the disposal of the former German colonies in Africa and in the Pacific and of the several non-Turkish provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The Peace Conference adopted the principle that these territories should be administered by different Governments on behalf of the League – a system of national responsibility subject to international supervision. This plan, defined as the Mandate system, was adopted by the “Council of Ten” on 30 January 1919 and transmitted to the League of Nations.

League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The Permanent Mandates Commission supervised League of Nations mandates, and also organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that residents could decide which country they would join. There were three Mandate classifications: A, B and C.

The A Mandates (applied to parts of the old Ottoman Empire) were 'certain communities' that had |Article 22|The Covenant of the League of Nations}}

The B Mandates were applied to the former German Colonies that the League took responsibility for after the First World War. These were described as 'peoples' that the League said were

South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands were administrated by League members under a C Mandate. These were classified as 'territories'

Mandatory Powers

The territories were governed by Mandatory Powers, such as the United Kingdom in the case of the Mandate of Palestine and the Union of South Africa in the case of South-West Africa, until the territories were deemed capable of self-government. There were fourteen mandate territories divided up among the six Mandatory Powers of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. With the exception of the Kingdom of Iraq, which joined the League on 3 October 1932, these territories did not begin to gain their independence until after the Second World War, a process that did not end until 1990, with the independence of Namibia. Following the demise of the League, most of the remaining mandates became United Nations Trust Territories.

In addition to the Mandates, the League itself governed the Territory of the Saar Basin for 15 years, before it was returned to Germany following a plebiscite, and the free city of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) from 15 November 1920 to 1 September 1939.

Resolving territorial disputes

The aftermath of the First World War left many issues to be settled between nations, including the exact position of national boundaries and which country particular regions would join. Most of these questions were handled by the victorious Allied Powers in bodies such as the Allied Supreme Council. The Allies tended to refer only particularly difficult matters to the League. This meant that, during the early interwar period, the League played little part in resolving the turmoil that resulted from the war. The questions the League considered in its early years included those designated by the Paris Peace treaties.

As the League developed, its role expanded, and by the middle of the 1920s, it became the centre of international activity. This change can be seen in the relationship between the League and non-members. The United States and Russia, for example, increasingly worked with the League. During the second half of the 1920s, France, Britain and Germany were all using the League of Nations as the focus of their diplomatic activity and each of their foreign secretaries attended League meetings at Geneva during this period. They also used the League's machinery to try to improve relations and settle their differences.

Upper Silesia

The Allied Powers referred the problem of Upper Silesia to the League after they had been unable to resolve the territorial dispute. After the First World War, Poland laid claim to Upper Silesia, which had been part of Prussia. The Treaty of Versailles had recommended a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to determine whether the territory should be part of Germany or Poland. Complaints about the attitude of the German authorities led to rioting and eventually to the first two Silesian Uprisings (1919 and 1920). A plebiscite took place on 20 March 1921 with 59.6% (around 500,000) of the votes cast in favour of joining Germany, but Poland claimed the conditions surrounding it had been unfair. This result led to the Third Silesian Uprising in 1921. On 12 August 1921, the League was asked to settle the matter, and the Council created a commission with representatives from Belgium, Brazil, China and Spain to study the situation. The committee recommended that Upper Silesia should be divided between Poland and Germany according to the preferences shown in the plebiscite and that the two sides should decide the details of the interaction between the two areas. For example, whether goods should pass freely over the border due to the economic and industrial interdependency of the two areas. In November 1921 a conference was held in Geneva to negotiate a convention between Germany and Poland. A final settlement was reached, after five meetings, in which most of the area was given to Germany but with the Polish section containing the majority of the region's mineral resources and much of its industry. When this agreement became public in May 1922, bitter resentment was expressed in Germany, but the treaty was still ratified by both countries. The settlement produced peace in the area lasting until the run up to the Second World War.

Albania

The frontiers of Albania had not been set during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, being left to the League to be decided, but had not yet been determined by September 1921. This created an unstable situation with Greek troops repeatedly crossing into Albanian territory on military operations in the south and Yugoslavian forces engaged, after clashes with Albanian tribesmen, far into the northern part of the country. The League sent a commission of representatives from various powers to the region and in November 1921, the League decided that the frontiers of Albania should be the same as they had been in 1913 with three minor changes that favoured Yugoslavia. Yugoslav forces withdrew a few weeks later, albeit under protest.

The borders of Albania again become the cause of international conflict when Italian General Enrico Tellini and four of his assistants were ambushed and killed on 24 August 1923 while marking out the new newly decided border between Greece and Albania. Italian leader Benito Mussolini was incensed, and demanded that a commission should be set up to investigate the incident and that its enquires should be completed within five days. Whatever the results of the enquiry, Mussolini insisted that the Greek government should pay Italy fifty million lire reparations. The Greeks said they would not pay unless it was proved that the crime was committed by Greeks.

Mussolini sent a warship to shell the Greek island of Corfu and Italian forces occupied Corfu on 31 August 1923. This contravened the League's covenant so Greece appealed to the League to deal with the situation. The Allies, however, agreed (under Mussolini's insistence) that the Conference of Ambassadors should be responsible for resolving the dispute because it was the conference that had appointed General Tellini. The League Council examined the dispute but then passed their findings to the Council of Ambassadors to make the final decision. The conference accepted most of the League's recommendations forcing Greece to pay fifty million lire to Italy even though those who committed the crime were never discovered. Mussolini was able to leave Corfu in triumph.

Åland Islands

Åland is a collection of around 6,500 islands midway between Sweden and Finland. The islands are almost exclusively Swedish-speaking, but in 1809, Sweden had lost both Finland and the Åland Islands to Imperial Russia. In December 1917, during the turmoil of the Russian October Revolution, Finland declared independence, and most of the Ålanders wished the islands to become part of Sweden again. However, the Finnish government considered the islands to be a part of their new nation, as the Russians had included Åland in the Grand Duchy of Finland formed in 1809. By 1920, the dispute had escalated to such a level that there was a danger of war. The British government referred the problem to the League's Council, but Finland did not let the League intervene as they considered it an internal matter. The League created a small panel to decide if the League should investigate the matter and, with an affirmative response, a neutral commission was created. In June 1921, the League announced its decision; the islands should remain a part of Finland but with guaranteed protection of the islanders, including demilitarization. With Sweden's reluctant agreement, this became the first European international agreement concluded directly through the League.

Hatay

The Republic of Hatay was a transitional political entity that formally existed from September 7, 1938 to June 29, 1939 in the territory of the Sanjak of Alexandretta of the French Mandate of Syria. With League of Nations oversight, the state was annexed by the Republic of Turkey on June 29, 1939 and transformed into the Turkish Hatay Province (excluding districts of Erzin, Dörtyol, Hassa).

Memel

The port city of Memel (now Klaipėda) and the surrounding area, with a predominantly German population, were under provisional Allied control according to the Article 99 of the Treaty of Versailles. The French and Polish governments favoured turning Memel into an international city while Lithuanians wanted to annex the area. By 1923, control of the area had still not been decided, prompting Lithuanian forces to invade in January 1923 and seize the port. After the Allies failed to reach an agreement with Lithuania, they referred the matter to the League of Nations. In December 1923, the League Council appointed a Commission of Inquiry to investigate. The Commission chose to cede Memel to Lithuania and give the area autonomous rights. The Klaipėda Convention was approved by the League Council on 14 March 1924 and then by the Allied Powers and Lithuania.

Mosul

The League resolved a dispute between the Kingdom of Iraq and the Republic of Turkey over the control of the former Ottoman province of Mosul in 1926. According to the British, who were awarded a League of Nations A-mandate over Iraq in 1920 and therefore represented Iraq in its foreign affairs, Mosul belonged to Iraq; on the other hand, the new Turkish republic claimed the province as part of its historic heartland. A League of Nations' Commission of Inquiry with Belgian, Hungarian and Swedish members was sent to the region in 1924 to study the case and found that the people of Mosul did not want to be part of Turkey or Iraq but if they had to choose would pick Iraq. In 1925, the commission recommended that the region stay part of Iraq, under the condition that the British would hold the mandate over Iraq for another 25 years, to assure the autonomous rights of the Kurdish population. The League Council adopted the recommendation and it decided on 16 December 1925 to award Mosul to Iraq. Although Turkey had accepted the League of Nations' arbitration in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, it rejected the League's decision questioning the Council's authority. The matter was referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice which ruled that when the Council made a unanimous decision it must be accepted. Nonetheless, Britain, Iraq and Turkey ratified a separate treaty on 5 June 1926, that mostly followed the decision of the League Council and also assigned Mosul to Iraq. It was agreed, however, that Iraq could still apply for League membership within 25 years and that the mandate would end upon its admittance.

Vilnius

After the First World War, Poland and Lithuania both regained their independence but soon immersed in territorial disputes. During the Polish–Soviet War, Lithuania signed the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union that laid out Lithuania's frontiers. This agreement gave Lithuanians the control of the city of Vilnius (, ), the old Lithuanian capital and a city with majority Polish population. This heightened tension between Lithuania and Poland led to fears that they would resume the Polish–Lithuanian War, and on 7 October 1920 the League negotiated the Suwałki Agreement. On 9 October 1920 General Lucjan Żeligowski with a Polish military force took the city and established the Republic of Central Lithuania.

Lithuania requested the League's assistance and in response, the League Council called for Poland's withdrawal from the area. The Polish Government indicated they would comply with the League, but rather than leaving, it reinforced the city with more Polish troops. This prompted the League to decide that the future of Vilnius should be determined by its residents in a plebiscite and that the Polish forces should withdraw and be replaced by an international force organised by the League. However, the plan was met with resistance in Poland, Lithuania and the Soviet Union, who opposed any international force in Lithuania. In March 1921, the League abandoned plans for the plebiscite. After unsuccessful proposals by Paul Hymans to create a federation between Poland and Lithuania, Vilnius and the surrounding area were formally annexed by Poland in March 1922. After Lithuania took over the Klaipėda Region, the Allied Conference set the frontier between Lithuania and Poland leaving Vilnius within Poland on 14 March 1923. Lithuanian authorities refused to accept the decision, and officially remained in a state of war with Poland until 1927. It was not until the 1938 Polish ultimatum that Lithuania restored diplomatic relations with Poland and thus ''de facto'' accepted the borders of its neighbour.

Colombia and Peru

There were several border conflicts between Colombia and Peru in the early part of the 20th century, and in 1922, their governments signed the Salomón-Lozano Treaty to try and resolve these conflicts. As part of this treaty, the border town Leticia and its surrounding area were ceded from Peru to Colombia, giving Colombia access to the Amazon River. On 1 September 1932, business leaders from the Peruvian rubber and sugar industries who had lost land when the area was given to Colombia organised an armed takeover of Leticia. At first, the Peruvian government did not recognise the military takeover but the President of Peru Luis Sánchez Cerro decided to resist a Colombian re-occupation. The Peruvian army occupied Leticia, resulting in an armed conflict between the two nations. After months of diplomatic wrangling, the governments accepted mediation by the League of Nations, and their representatives presented their cases before the League's Council. A provisional peace agreement, signed by both parties in May 1933, provided for the League to assume control of the disputed territory while bilateral negotiations proceeded. In May 1934, a final peace agreement was signed, resulting in the return of Leticia to Colombia, a formal apology from Peru for the 1932 invasion, demilitarization of the area around Leticia, free navigation on the Amazon and Putumayo Rivers, and a pledge of non-aggression.

Saar

Saar was a province established and placed under League control by the Treaty of Versailles. It was formed from parts of Prussia and the Rhenish Palatinate. A plebiscite was to be held after fifteen years of League rule to determine whether the province should belong to Germany or France. When the referendum was held in 1935, 90.3% of votes supported becoming part of Germany. On 17 January 1935, the territory's re-integration with Germany was approved by the League Council.

Peace and security

In addition to territorial disputes, the League also tried to intervene in other conflicts between (and even within) nations. Among its successes were its attempts to combat the international trade in opium and sexual slavery, and its work to alleviate the plight of refugees, particularly in Turkey in the period to 1926. One of its innovations in this latter area was the 1922 introduction of the Nansen passport, which was the first internationally recognised identity card for stateless refugees. Many of the League's successes were accomplished by its various agencies and commissions.

Greece and Bulgaria

After an incident between sentries on the border between Greece and Bulgaria in October 1925, fighting began between the two countries. Three days after the initial incident, Greek troops invaded Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government ordered its troops to provide only token resistance, and evacuated between ten thousand and fifteen thousand people from the border region, trusting the League to settle the dispute. The League did indeed condemn the Greek invasion, and called for both Greek withdrawal and compensation to Bulgaria. Greece complied, but complained about the disparity between their treatment and that of Italy after the Corfu incident.

Liberia

Following accusations of forced labour on the massive American-owned Firestone rubber plantation and American accusations of slave trading, the Liberian government asked the League to launch an investigation. The commission created to investigate was jointly appointed by the League, the United States, and Liberia. In 1930, a report by the League confirmed slavery and forced labour was taking place. The report implicated many government officials in the selling of contract labour and recommended that they be replaced by Europeans or Americans. The Liberian government outlawed forced labour and slavery and asked for American help, a move which created anger within Liberia and led to the resignation of President Charles D.B. King and his vice-president. The League then threatened to establish a trusteeship over Liberia unless reforms were carried out. Enacting these reforms became the central focus of President Edwin Barclay.

Mukden Incident

The Mukden Incident, also known as the "Manchurian Incident" or the "Far Eastern Crisis", was one of the League's major setbacks and acted as the catalyst for Japan's withdrawal from the organisation. Under the terms of an agreed lease, the Japanese government had the right to station its troops in the area around the South Manchurian Railway, a major trade route between the two countries, in the Chinese region of Manchuria. In September 1931, a section of the railway was lightly damaged by officers and troops of the Japanese Kwantung Army as a pretext for an invasion of Manchuria. The Japanese army, however, claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the railway and in apparent retaliation (acting contrary to the civilian government's orders) occupied the entire region of Manchuria. They renamed the area Manchukuo, and on 9 March 1932 set up a puppet government with Pu Yi, the former emperor of China, as its executive head. Internationally, this new country was recognised only by the governments of Italy and Germany; the rest of the world still considered Manchuria legally part of China. In 1932, Japanese air and sea forces bombarded the Chinese city of Shanghai, sparking the January 28 Incident.

The League of Nations agreed to a request for help from the Chinese government, but the long voyage by ship delayed League officials from investigating the matter. When they arrived, the officials were confronted with Chinese assertions that the Japanese had invaded unlawfully, while the Japanese claimed they were acting to keep peace in the area. Despite Japan's high standing in the League, the subsequent Lytton Report declared Japan to be the aggressor and demanded Manchuria be returned to the Chinese. Before the report could be voted on by the Assembly, Japan announced its intention to push further into China. The report passed 42–1 in the Assembly in 1933 (only Japan voted against), but instead of withdrawing its troops from China, Japan withdrew its membership from the League.

According to the Covenant, the League should have responded by placing economic sanctions on Japan, or gathered an army and declared war. Neither of these actions was undertaken, however. The threat of economic sanctions would have been almost useless because the United States was not a League member. Any economic sanctions the League had placed on its member states would have been ineffective, as a country barred from trading with other member states could simply turn and trade with the United States. The League could have assembled an army, but major powers like Britain and France were too preoccupied with their own affairs, such as keeping control of their extensive colonies, especially after the turmoil of the First World War. Japan was therefore left in control of Manchuria, until the Soviet Union's Red Army took over the area and returned it to China at the end of the Second World War.

Chaco War

The League failed to prevent the 1932 war between Bolivia and Paraguay over the arid Gran Chaco region of South America. Although the region was sparsely populated, it contained the Paraguay River which would have given one of the two landlocked countries access to the Atlantic Ocean, and there was also speculation, later proved incorrect, that the Chaco would be a rich source of petroleum. Border skirmishes throughout the late 1920s culminated in an all-out war in 1932, when the Bolivian army attacked the Paraguayans at Fort Carlos Antonio López at Lake Pitiantuta. Paraguay appealed to the League of Nations, but the League did not take action when the Pan-American Conference offered to mediate instead. The war was a disaster for both sides, causing 57,000 casualties for Bolivia, whose population was around three million, and 36,000 dead for Paraguay, whose population was approximately one million. It also brought both countries to the brink of economic disaster. By the time a ceasefire was negotiated on 12 June 1935, Paraguay had seized control over most of the region. This was recognised in a 1938 truce by which Paraguay was awarded three-quarters of the Chaco Boreal.

Italian invasion of Abyssinia

In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini sent 400,000 troops to invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Marshal Pietro Badoglio led the campaign from November 1935, ordering bombing, the use of chemical weapons like mustard gas, and the poisoning of water supplies, against targets which included undefended villages and medical facilities. The modern Italian Army defeated the poorly armed Abyssinians, and captured Addis Ababa in May 1936, forcing Emperor Haile Selassie to flee.

The League of Nations condemned Italy's aggression and imposed economic sanctions in November 1935, but the sanctions were largely ineffective since they did not ban the sale of oil or close the Suez Canal (controlled by Britain). As Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister, later observed, this was ultimately because no one had the military forces on hand to withstand an Italian attack. In October 1935, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the recently passed Neutrality Acts and placed an embargo on arms and ammunition with both sides, but extended a further "moral embargo" to the belligerent Italians, including other trade items. On 5 October and later on 29 February 1936 the United States endeavoured, with uncertain success, to limit its exports of oil and other materials to normal peacetime levels. The League sanctions were lifted on 4 July 1936, but by that point Italy had already gained control of the urban areas of Abyssinia.

In December 1935, the Hoare-Laval Pact was an attempt by British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare and French Prime Minister Pierre Laval to end the conflict in Abyssinia by drawing up a plan to partition the country into two parts, an Italian sector and an Abyssinian sector. Mussolini was prepared to agree to the Pact, but news of the deal was leaked and both the British and French public venomously protested against it, describing it as a sell-out of Abyssinia. Hoare and Laval were forced to resign their positions, and both the British and French governments dissociated themselves from their respective men. In June 1936, although there was no precedent for a head of state addressing the Assembly of the League of Nations in person, the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I spoke to the Assembly to appeal for its help in protecting his country.

As was the case with Japan, the vigour of the major powers in responding to the crisis in Abyssinia was tempered by their perception that the fate of this poor and far-off country, inhabited by non-Europeans, was not a central interest of theirs. In addition, it showed how the League could be influenced by the self-interest of its members; one of the reasons why the sanctions were not very harsh was that both Britain and France feared the prospect of driving Mussolini and German dictator Adolf Hitler into an alliance.

Spanish Civil War

On 17 July 1936, the Spanish Army launched a coup d'état, leading to a prolonged armed conflict between Spanish Republicans (the leftist government of Spain) and the Nationalists (conservative, anti-communist rebels who included most officers of the Spanish Army). Alvarez del Vayo, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, appealed to the League in September 1936 for arms to defend its territorial integrity and political independence. The League members, however, would not intervene in the Spanish Civil War nor prevent foreign intervention in the conflict. Hitler and Mussolini continued to aid General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist insurrectionists, and the Soviet Union aided the Spanish Republic. In February 1937, the League did launch a ban on the intervention of foreign national volunteers.

Second Sino-Japanese War

Following a long record of instigating localised conflicts throughout the 1930s, Japan began a full scale invasion of China on 7 July 1937. On 12 September, the Chinese representative, Wellington Koo, appealed to the League for an international intervention. Western countries were sympathetic to the Chinese in their struggle against Japan, particularly in their stubborn defence of Shanghai, a city with a substantial number of foreigners. However, the League was unable to provide any practical measure other than a final statement that gave China "spiritual support." On 4 October, the League adjourned and turned the case over to the Nine Power Treaty Conference.

Disarmament and failures en route to the Second World War

Article eight of the League's covenant gave the League the task of reducing "armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations" A significant amount of the League's time and energy was devoted to disarmament, even though many member governments were uncertain that such extensive disarmament could be achieved or was even desirable. The Allied Powers were also under obligation from the Treaty of Versailles to attempt to disarm, and the armament restrictions imposed on the defeated countries had been described as the first step toward world wide disarmament. The League Covenant assigned the League the task of creating a disarmament plan for each state, but the Council devolved this responsibility to a special commission set-up in 1926 to prepare for the 1932–34 World Disarmament Conference. Members of the League held different views towards disarmament. The French were reluctant to reduce their armaments without a guarantee of military help if they were attacked; Poland and Czechoslovakia felt vulnerable to attack from the west and wanted the League's response to aggression against its members to be strengthened before they disarmed. Without this guarantee, they would not reduce armaments because they felt the risk of attack from Germany was too great. Fear of attack increased as Germany regained strength after the First World War, especially after Hitler gained power and became German Chancellor in 1933. In particular, Germany's attempts to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and the reconstruction of the German military made France increasingly unwilling to disarm.

The World Disarmament Conference was convened by the League of Nations in Geneva in 1932, with representatives from 60 states. A one-year truce on the expansion of armaments, later extended by a few months, was proposed at the start of the conference. The Disarmament Commission obtained initial agreement from France, Italy, Japan, and Britain to limit the size of their navies. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, facilitated by the commission in 1928, failed in its objective of outlawing war. Ultimately, the Commission failed to halt the military build-up by Germany, Italy and Japan during the 1930s. The League was mostly silent in the face of major events leading to the Second World War, such as Hitler's re-militarisation of the Rhineland, occupation of the Sudetenland and Anschluss of Austria, which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. In fact, League members themselves re-armed. In 1933, Japan simply withdrew from the League rather than submit to its judgement, as did Germany in 1933 (using the failure of the World Disarmament Conference to agree to arms parity between France and Germany as a pretext), and Italy in 1937. The League commissioner in Danzig was unable to deal with German claims on the city, a significant contributing factor in the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. The final significant act of the League was to expel the Soviet Union in December 1939 after it invaded Finland.

General weaknesses

[[Image:The Gap in the Bridge.gif|right|thumb|250px|The Gap in the Bridge the sign reads "This League of Nations Bridge was designed by the President of the U.S.A" ---- Cartoon from Punch magazine, 10 December 1920, satirizing the gap left by the USA when they did not join the League of Nations.]] The onset of the Second World War demonstrated that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was to avoid any future world war. There were a variety of reasons for this failure, many connected to general weaknesses within the organisation. Additionally, the United States' refusal to join the League limited the power of the organisation.

Origins and structure

The origins of the League as an organisation created by the Allied Powers as part of the peace settlement to end the First World War led to it being viewed as a "League of Victors". It also tied the League to the Treaty of Versailles, so that when the Treaty became discredited and unpopular, this reflected on the League of Nations.

The League's supposed neutrality tended to manifest itself as indecision. It required a unanimous vote of its nine-, later fifteen-, member Council to enact a resolution; hence, conclusive and effective action was difficult, if not impossible. It was also slow in coming to its decisions as certain decisions required the unanimous consent of the entire Assembly. This problem mainly stemmed from the fact that the main members of the League of Nations were not willing to accept the possibility that their fate would be decided by other countries and had therefore, in effect, by enforcing unanimous voting given themselves the power of veto.

Global representation

Representation at the League was often a problem. Though it was intended to encompass all nations, many never joined, or their time as part of the League was short. Most notably missing was the position that the United States was supposed to play in the League, not only in terms of helping to ensure world peace and security but also in financing the League. The US President Woodrow Wilson had been a driving force behind the League's formation and strongly influenced the form it took but the US Senate voted not to join on 19 November 1919. Ruth Henig has suggested that, had the United States been a member of the League, it would have also provided backup to France and Britain, possibly making France feel more secure and so encouraging France and Britain to co-operate more regarding Germany and so made the rise to power of the Nazi party less likely. On the contrary, Henig acknowledges that if America had been a member of the League, its reluctance to engage in war with European states and to enact economic sanctions may have hampered the ability of the League to deal with international incidents. The structure of government in America may also have made its membership problematic as its representatives at the League could not have made decisions on behalf of the United States executive branch without this having already been approved by the legislative branches.

In January 1920, when the League began, Germany was not permitted to join because it was seen as the aggressor in the First World War. Soviet Russia was also initially excluded from the League, as communist views were not welcomed by the victors of the First World War. The League was further weakened when critical powers left in the 1930s. Japan began as a permanent member of the Council, but withdrew in 1933 after the League voiced opposition to its invasion of the Chinese territory of Manchuria. Italy also began as a permanent member of the Council but withdrew in 1937. The League had accepted Germany as a member in 1926, deeming it a "peace-loving country", but Adolf Hitler pulled Germany out when he came to power in 1933.

Collective security

Another important weakness grew from the contradiction between the idea of collective security, that formed the basis of the League, and international relations between individual states. The collective security system the League used meant that nations were required to act against states they considered friends, and in a way that might endanger their national interests, to support states that they had no normal affinity with. This weakness was exposed during the Abyssinia Crisis when Britain and France had to balance attempts to maintain the security they had attempted to create for themselves in Europe "in order to defend against the enemies of internal order", in which Italy's support played a pivotal role, with their obligations to Abyssinia as a member of the League.

On 23 June 1936, in the wake of the collapse of League efforts to restrain Italy's war of conquest against Abyssinia, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that collective security had

Ultimately, Britain and France both abandoned the concept of collective security in favour of appeasement in the face of growing German militarism under Adolf Hitler.

Pacifism and disarmament

[[Image:League of Nations cartoon from Punch - Project Gutenberg eText 16619.png|thumb|upright|left||Moral Suasion.''The Rabbit''. "My offensive equipment being practically nil, it remains for me to fascinate him with the power of my eye." ---- Cartoon from Punch magazine, 28 July 1920, satirising the perceived weakness of the League.]] The League of Nations lacked an armed force of its own and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, which they were very reluctant to do. The League's two most important members, Britain and France, were reluctant to use sanctions and even more reluctant to resort to military action on behalf of the League. Immediately after the First World War, pacifism was a strong force both in the populations and the governments of the two countries. The British Conservatives were especially tepid on the League and preferred, when in government, to negotiate treaties without the involvement of the organisation.

Moreover, the League's advocacy of disarmament for Britain, France and its other members while at the same time advocating collective security meant that the League was unwittingly depriving itself of the only forceful means by which its authority would be upheld. If the League was to force countries to abide by international law, it would require the Royal Navy and the French Army to do the enforcing.

When the British Cabinet discussed the concept of the League during the First World War, Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, circulated a memorandum on the subject. He started by saying: "Generally it appears to me that any such scheme is dangerous to us, because it will create a sense of security which is wholly fictitious". He attacked the British pre-war faith in the sanctity of treaties as delusional and concluded by claiming:

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The Foreign Office minister Sir Eyre Crowe also wrote a memorandum to the British Cabinet claiming that "a solemn league and covenant" would just be "a treaty, like other treaties": "What is there to ensure that it will not, like other treaties, be broken?". Crowe went on to express scepticism of the planned "pledge of common action" against aggressors because he believed the actions of individual states would still be determined by national interests and the balance of power. He also criticised the proposal for League economic sanctions because it would be ineffectual and that "It is all a question of real military preponderance". Universal disarmament was a practical impossibility, Crowe warned.

Demise and legacy

As the situation in Europe deteriorated into war, the Assembly transferred enough power to the Secretary General on 30 September 1938 and 14 December 1939 to allow the League to continue to legally exist and to carry on reduced operations. The headquarters of the League, the Palace of Peace, remained unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War ended.

At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League: the United Nations. Many League bodies, such as the International Labour Organization, continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN. The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more effective than the League.

The final meeting of the League of Nations was held on April 12, 1946 in Geneva. Delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly. This session concerned itself with liquidating the League: assets worth approximately $22,000,000 in 1946, including the Palace of Peace and the League's archives, were given to the UN, reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied them, and the debts of the League were settled. Robert Cecil is said to have summed up the feeling of the gathering during a speech to the final assembly when he said:

The motion that dissolved the League passed unanimously: "The League of Nations shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its affairs." The motion also set the date for the end of the League as the day after the session was closed. On 19 April 1946, the President of the Assembly, Carl J. Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first and last session of the General Assembly of the League of Nations closed." As a result, the League of Nations ceased to exist on 20 April 1946.

Professor David Kennedy has suggested that the League is a unique moment when international affairs were "institutionalized" as opposed to the pre–First World War methods of law and politics. The principal Allies in the Second World War (the UK, the USSR, France, the US, and Republic of China) became permanent members of the UN Security Council; these new "Great Powers" gained significant international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the UN Security Council are binding on all members of the UN; however, unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the League Council. Permanent members of the UN Security Council are also given a shield to protect their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting decisively in many cases.

Similarly, the UN does not have its own standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions, such as during the Korean War and the peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia. The UN has in some cases been forced to rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more representative.

See also

Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations

Atlantic Charter

Latin America and the League of Nations

Ligue internationale de la paix

Notes

References

Further reading

]

Woodrow Wilson, compiled with his approval by Hamilton Foley; ''Woodrow Wilson's Case for the League of Nations'', Princeton University Press, Princeton 1923 contemporary book review

External links

Covenant of the League of Nations, yale.edu

League of Nations Photo archive, Indiana.edu

League of Nations chronology

League of Nations timeline, worldatwar.net

Wilson's Final Address in Support of the League of Nations Speech made 25 September 1919

Haile Selassie's 1936 speech to the conference after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia

History (1919–1946) from the United Nations Office at Geneva

League of Nations Archives from the United Nations Office at Geneva

Table of Assemblies Dates of each annual assembly, links to list of members of each country's delegation

LONSEA – League of Nations Search Engine, Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context", Universität Heidelberg

Category:1946 disestablishments Category:Former international organizations Category:League of Nations Category:Organizations established in 1919 Category:Organisations based in Geneva

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Name	Lady Gaga
Alt	Portrait of a young, pale-skinned Caucasian female with blond hair
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
Birth date	March 28, 1986
Birth place	New York, New York, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, piano, keyboards
Genre	Pop, dance
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, performance artist, record producer, dancer, businesswoman, activist
Years active	2005–present
Label	Def Jam, Cherrytree, Streamline, Kon Live, Interscope
Website	}}

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (; born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She began performing in the rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side, and was signed with Streamline Records by the end of 2007. During her employment as a songwriter for the record company, her vocal abilities captured the attention of recording artist Akon, who signed her to his label Kon Live Distribution.

Lady Gaga came to prominence as a recording artist following the release of her debut album ''The Fame'' (2008), which was a critical and commercial success that topped charts around the world and included the international number-one singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". After embarking on the The Fame Ball Tour, she followed the album with ''The Fame Monster'' (2009), which spawned the worldwide hit singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro". The album's success allowed her to embark on the eighteen-month long Monster Ball Tour, which later became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. Her most recent album ''Born This Way'' (2011) topped the charts of most major markets and generated more international chart-topping singles, including "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory". Besides her musical career, she involves herself with humanitarian causes and LGBT activism.

Influenced by David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Queen, Lady Gaga is recognized for her flamboyant, diverse and outré contributions to the music industry through her fashion, performances and music videos. She has sold an estimated 23 million albums and 64 million singles worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time and her singles are some of the best selling worldwide. Her achievements include five Grammy Awards and 13 MTV Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga has consecutively appeared on ''Billboard'' magazine's Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010), ranked fourth in VH1's list of 100 Greatest Women in Music, is regularly placed on lists composed by ''Forbes'' magazine and was named one of the most influential people in the world by ''Time'' magazine. In 2012, Gaga was ranked at number four on ''Billboard's'' list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing more than 25 million dollars.

Biography

1986–2004: Early life

Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986 in New York City to parents Cynthia (née Bissett) and Joseph Germanotta, an internet entrepreneur. Descending from Italian and more distant French-Canadian roots, Gaga is the elder of two children. Her sister, Natali, a fashion student, was born in 1992. Despite her seemingly affluent upbringing in the family home in Manhattan's Upper West Side, Gaga has stressed that she did not come from a wealthy background, stating that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everything—my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father."

From the age of 11, Gaga – who was raised Roman Catholic – attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure": "I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak." Acquaintances dispute that she did not fit in at school. "She had a core group of friends; she was a good student. She liked boys a lot, but singing was No. 1," recalled a former high school classmate. Gaga began playing the piano at the age of 4, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13, and started to perform at open mike nights by the age of 14. Her passion for musical theatre brought her lead roles in high school productions, including Adelaide in ''Guys and Dolls'' and Philia in ''A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum''. She also appeared in a very small role as a mischievous classmate in the television drama series ''The Sopranos'' in a 2001 episode titled "The Telltale Moozadell" in addition to unsuccessfully auditioning for parts in New York shows.

When her time at the Convent of the Sacred Heart came to an end, her mother encouraged her to apply for the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), a musical theatre training conservatory at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. After becoming one of twenty students to gain early admission, she eventually lived in an NYU dorm on 11th Street by the age of 17. CAP21 prepared her for her future career focus in "music, art, sex and celebrity" where, in addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics, including a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst. With CAP21, she also tried out for and won auditions, including the part of an unsuspecting diner customer for MTV's ''Boiling Points'', a prank reality television show. But Gaga felt more creative than some of her classmates. "Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself," she said.

2005–07: Career beginnings

Gaga withdrew from CAP21 at 19, in the second semester of her sophomore year, deciding to focus on her musical career. Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll at Tisch if unsuccessful. "I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen," she remembers. Settled in a small apartment on Rivington Street towards the summer of 2005, Gaga recorded a couple of songs with hip-hop singer Grandmaster Melle Mel, for an audio book accompanying the children's book ''The Portal in the Park'', by Cricket Casey. She also began a band called the Stefani Germanotta Band (SGBand) with some friends from NYU – guitarist Calvin Pia, bassist Eli Silverman, drummer Alex Beckham and booking manager Frank Fredericks – in September of that year. The band played a mixture of songs: some self-penned alongside classic rock numbers like Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er". Playing in bars like the Greenwich Village's The Bitter End and the Lower East Side's the Mercury Lounge, the band developed a small fan base and caught the eye of music producer Joe Vulpis. Soon after arranging time in Vulpis' studio in the months that followed, SGBand were selling their extended plays ''Words'' and ''Red and Blue'' (both 2005) at gigs around New York while becoming a local fixture of the downtown Lower East Side club scene.

SGBand reached their career peak at the 2006 Songwriters Hall of Fame New Songwriters Showcase at The Cutting Room in June where Wendy Starland, a musician, appeared as a talent scout for music producer Rob Fusari. Starland informed Fusari – who was searching for a female singer to front a new band – of Gaga's ability and contacted her. With SGBand disbanded, Gaga traveled daily to New Jersey to work on songs she had written and compose new material with the music producer. While in collaboration, Fusari compared some of her vocal harmonies to those of Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. It was Fusari who helped create the moniker Gaga after the Queen song "Radio Ga Ga". Gaga was in the process of trying to come up with a stage name when she received a text message from Fusari that read "Lady Gaga." He explained, "Every day, when Stef came to the studio, instead of saying hello, I would start singing 'Radio Ga Ga'. That was her entrance song" and that the text message was the result of a predictive text glitch that changed "radio" to "lady". She texted back, "That's it," and declared, "Don't ever call me Stefani again." ''The New York Post'', however, has reported that this story is incorrect, and that the name resulted from a marketing meeting.

Although the musical relationship between Fusari and Gaga was unsuccessful at first, the pair soon set up a company titled Team Lovechild in which they recorded and produced electropop tracks and sent them to music industry bosses. Joshua Sarubin, the head of A&R; at Def Jam Recordings, responded positively and vied for the record company to take a chance on her "unusual and provocative" performance. After having his boss Antonio "L.A." Reid in agreement, Gaga was signed to Def Jam in September 2006 with the intention of having an album ready in nine months. However, she was dropped by the label after only three months – an unfortunate period of her life that would later inspire her treatment for the music video for her 2011 single "Marry the Night". Devastated, Gaga returned to the solace of the family home for Christmas and the nightlife culture of the Lower East Side.

She became increasingly experimental: fascinating herself with emerging neo-burlesque shows, go-go dancing at bars dressed in little more than a bikini in addition to experimenting with drugs. Her father, however, did not understand the reason behind her drug intake and could not look at her for several months. "I was onstage in a thong, with a fringe hanging over my ass thinking that had covered it, lighting hairsprays on fire, go-go dancing to Black Sabbath and singing songs about oral sex. The kids would scream and cheer and then we'd all go grab a beer. It represented freedom to me. I went to a Catholic school but it was on the New York underground that I found myself." It was then when she became romantically involved with a heavy metal drummer in a relationship and break-up she likened to the musical film ''Grease'': "I was his Sandy, and he was my Danny, and I just broke." He later became an inspiration behind some of her later songs.

During this time, she met performance artist Lady Starlight, who helped mold her on-stage persona. Starlight explained that, upon their first meeting, Gaga wanted to perform with her to songs she had recorded with Fusari. Like SGBand, the pair soon began performing at many of the downtown club venues like the Mercury Lounge, The Bitter End, and the Rockwood Music Hall. Their live performance art piece was known as "Lady Gaga and the Starlight Revue" and, billed as "The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Rockshow", was a low-fi tribute to 1970s variety acts. Soon after, the two were invited to play at the 2007 Lollapalooza music festival in August that year. The show was critically acclaimed, and their performance received positive reviews. Having initially focused on avant-garde electronic dance music, Gaga had found her musical niche when she began to incorporate pop melodies and the glam rock of David Bowie and Queen into her music.

While Gaga and Starlight were busy performing, producer Rob Fusari continued to work on the songs he had created with Gaga. Fusari sent these songs to his friend, producer and record executive Vincent Herbert. Herbert was quick to sign her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records, upon its establishment in 2007. Gaga later credited Herbert as the man who discovered her, adding "I really feel like we made pop history, and we're gonna keep going." Having served as an apprentice songwriter under an internship at Famous Music Publishing, which was later acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Gaga subsequently struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. At Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio. Akon then convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M; Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live, making her his "franchise player."

As 2007 came to a close, her former management company introduced her to songwriter and producer RedOne, whom they also managed. The first song she produced with RedOne was "Boys Boys Boys", a mash-up inspired by Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls" and AC/DC's "T.N.T.". Gaga continued her collaboration with RedOne in the recording studio for a week on her debut album and also joined the roster of Cherrytree Records, an Interscope imprint established by producer and songwriter Martin Kierszenbaum, after co-writing four songs with Kierszenbaum including the singles "Christmas Tree" and "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)". Despite her secure record deal, she admitted that there was fear about her being too "racy", "dance-orientated" and "underground" for the mainstream market. Her response: "My name is Lady Gaga, I've been on the music scene for years, and I'm telling you, this is what's next."

2008–10: ''The Fame'' and ''The Fame Monster''

By 2008, Gaga had relocated to Los Angeles in order to work extensively with her record label to complete her debut album and set up her own creative team Haus of Gaga, modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory. ''The Fame'' was first released on August 19, 2008 to slow radio play. Gaga supported it by performing around Europe and in small gay clubs around the US in addition to being billed as a supporting artist on the North American leg of New Kids on the Block's reunion concert tour. A sleeper hit, lead single "Just Dance" had preceded the album's release by four months but only hit the summit of the international charts in January 2009, provoking the instant success of the album, earning her first Grammy Award nomination (for Best Dance Recording) and becoming one of the best-selling singles worldwide. Gaga achieved a greater unexpected success when "Poker Face", another sleeper hit, reached number one in most major music markets worldwide in early 2009, selling 9.8 million singles worldwide. The follow-up single won the award for Best Dance Recording at the 52nd Grammy Awards over nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

''The Fame'' itself was nominated for Album of the Year while winning Best Dance/Electronica Album at the same ceremony. Contemporary critics lauded the album, describing it as an exploration of her obsession with fame and the intricacies of a rich and famous lifestyle, noting its combination of genres "from Def Leppard drums and hand claps to metal drums on urban tracks", the inspiration drawn from 1980s synthpop and incorporation of dance music with clear hooks. ''The Fame'' went to number one in Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK and appeared in the top five in Australia, the US and 15 other countries. It also stayed atop the Dance/Electronic Albums chart for 106 non-consecutive weeks and, since its release, has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. The album's success spawned many 2009 honors including ''Billboard'' magazine's Rising Star award and the accumulation of 3 of 9 MTV Video Music Awards nominations, winning Best New Artist with the video for her single "Paparazzi" gaining Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects. In addition to being an opening act on the Pussycat Dolls' Doll Domination Tour during the first half of 2009 in Europe and Oceania, she also embarked on her own six-month critically appreciated worldwide concert tour The Fame Ball Tour which ran from March to September 2009.

While she traveled the globe, she wrote ''The Fame Monster'', an EP of eight songs released in November 2009. Each song, dealing with the darker side of fame from personal experience, is expressed through a monster metaphor. Making Gaga the first artist in digital history to have three singles (alongside "Just Dance" and "Poker Face") to pass the four million mark in digital sales, its lead single "Bad Romance" topped the charts in eighteen countries and reached the top two in the US, Australia and New Zealand while accruing the Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video. The second single "Telephone", which features singer Beyoncé, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and became Gaga's fourth UK number one single; its accompanying music video, although controversial, receiving positive reception from contemporary critics who praised her for "the musicality and showmanship of Michael Jackson and the powerful sexuality and provocative instincts of Madonna." Her following single "Alejandro" paired Gaga with fashion photographer Steven Klein for a music video similarly as controversial – critics complimented its ideas and dark nature but the Catholic League attacked Gaga for her alleged use of blasphemy. Despite the controversy surrounding her music videos, they made Gaga the first artist to gain over one billion viral views on video-sharing website YouTube. At the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, Gaga won 8 of her 13 nominations, including Video of the Year for "Bad Romance" (with "Telephone" also nominated), which made her the first female artist to be nominated twice for the award. In addition, ''The Fame Monster'' garnered a total of six nominations at the 53rd Grammy Awards – equating to the amount of Grammy nominations her debut received – winning Best Pop Vocal Album and earning her a second-consecutive nomination for Album of the Year.

The success of the album allowed Gaga to start her second worldwide concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just weeks after the release of ''The Fame Monster'' and months after having finished The Fame Ball Tour. Upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and grossed $227.4 million, making it one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time and the highest-grossing for a debut headlining artist. Concerts performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City were filmed for a HBO television special titled ''Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden''. The special accrued one of its five Emmy Award nominations and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray. Gaga also performed songs from the album at international events such as the 2009 Royal Variety Performance where she sang "Speechless", a power ballad, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II; the 52nd Grammy Awards where her opening performance consisted of the song "Poker Face" and a piano duet of "Speechless" in a medley of "Your Song" with Elton John; and the 2010 BRIT Awards where a performance of an acoustic rendition of "Telephone" followed by "Dance in the Dark" dedicated to the late fashion designer and close friend, Alexander McQueen, supplemented her hat-trick win at the awards ceremony. Other performances may have included her participation in Michael Jackson's This Is It concert series at London's O2 Arena. "I was actually asked to open for Michael on his tour," she stated. "We were going to open for him at the O2 and we were working on making it happen. I believe there was some talk about us, lots of the openers, doing duets with Michael on stage."

In 2009 she collaborated with consumer electronic company Monster Cable Products to create a pair of in-ear jewel-encrusted headphones titled Heartbeats. "They are designed to be the first ever fashion accessories that double as the absolute best sonically sounding headphones in the world," she commented. Gaga also partnered with Polaroid in January 2010 as their Creative Director. Excited about "blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era," Gaga unveiled the first trio of new products called Grey Label: a pair of picture-taking sunglasses, a paperback-sized mobile printing unit and an updated version of the traditional Polaroid camera at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. But her collaboration with past producer Rob Fusari led to her production team, Mermaid Music LLC, being sued in March 2010 when he claimed that he was entitled to a 20% share of the company's earnings. Gaga's lawyer, Charles Ortner, described the agreement with Fusari as "unlawful" and declined to comment, but five months later, the New York Supreme Court dismissed both the lawsuit and a countersuit by Gaga. In addition to such strife, Gaga was tested borderline positive for lupus, but claimed not to be affected by the symptoms. The revelations caused considerable dismay among fans, leading to Gaga addressing the matter in an interview with Larry King, saying she hopes to avoid symptoms by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

2011–present: ''Born This Way''

Gaga released her second studio album and third major release, ''Born This Way'', on May 23, 2011. Described as a marriage of electronic music with metal, rock 'n' roll, pop and anthemic style melodies with sledge-hammering dance beats and referred to as an album "about what what keeps us up at night and what makes us afraid," Gaga characterized it as "something so much deeper than a wig or lipstick or a fucking meat dress" and, upon hearing it, Akon remarked that she is taking music to the "next level." Upon release, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its range of different styles and her vocals. ''Born This Way'' sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuted atop the ''Billboard'' 200, and topped the charts in more than 20 other countries. In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, ''Born This Way'' received 3 Grammy Award nominations, including her third consecutive for Album of the Year.

In the months prior to its unveiling, Gaga released the singles "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory" alongside promotional single "Hair". The eponymous lead single, first sung live at the 53rd Grammy Awards in a performance that saw Gaga emerge from an egg-like vessel, deals with self-acceptance regardless of race or sexual orientation. The single debuted atop the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, becoming the 19th number-one debut and the 1,000th number-one single in the history of the charts. It sold more than 3 million digital copies in the US by October 2011, becoming her eighth consecutive single to exceed sales of 2 million and, with worldwide sales of 8.2 million copies by November 2011, one of her five best-selling singles worldwide. Critics noted artistic and cultural references and praised the concept of the song's accompanying music video, in which Gaga gives birth to a new race amidst surrealistic images. The video for "Judas", in which Gaga portrays Mary Magdalene, and Biblical figures such as Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot are also featured, was criticized for its religious references but received acclaim for its overall delivery and praise from others who claimed that there was nothing offensive about it. "Judas" also peaked within the top ten in several major musical markets, while "The Edge of Glory", first a commercial success in digital outlets, was later released as a single to critical appreciation, accompanied by a video which was notably stripped down from her usually "extravagant" efforts. She released "You and I" and "Marry the Night" as the following singles from ''Born This Way''. Although their "crazy and ambitious" videos were praised for their audacity, both songs failed to match the similar international success that their predecessors achieved.

Gaga continued her musical endeavors by pairing with veteran artists like Tony Bennett to record a jazz version of "The Lady Is a Tramp". She also recorded a duet with Cher on a "massive" and "beautiful" track, which Gaga "wrote a long time ago, and I've never put it on one of my own albums for, really, no particular reason." Gaga also lent her vocals to an original duet with Elton John for the animated feature film ''Gnomeo & Juliet''. The song, "Hello, Hello", was released without Gaga's vocals but the duet version features in the film. She also continued her live appearances throughout 2011, performing a one-of-a-kind concert at the Sydney Town Hall on July 13 in promotion of ''Born This Way'' and at the celebration of former US president Bill Clinton's 65th birthday, wearing a blond wig as a nod to the famous performance of Marilyn Monroe for John F. Kennedy and changing the lyrics to "You and I" specifically for the performance. Televised appearances comprised her own Thanksgiving Day television special entitled ''A Very Gaga Thanksgiving'' which was critically lauded, attained 5.749 million American viewers, and spawned the release of her fourth extended play ''A Very Gaga Holiday''. Her second performance on ''Saturday Night Live'' saw her singing a selection of ''Born This Way'' songs alongside appearing in number of sketches with Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg. In March 2012, Gaga was ranked at number four on ''Billboard'''s list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039 dollars, which includes sales from ''Born This Way'' and her ''Monster Ball Tour''.

In early 2012, Gaga stated that songs for a new album were "beginning to flourish" as she worked with producer Fernando Garibay, while the accompanying tour for ''Born This Way'' was materializing. The Born This Way Ball Tour is set to begin on April 27, 2012, at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, South Korea.

Artistry

Influences

Gaga's parents, who exposed her to artists like The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elton John, had significant influence on her childhood and, presently, still do. "I am a real family girl. When it comes to love and loyalty, I am very old-fashioned. And I am quite down-to-earth for such an eccentric person," she insists. "I'm quite traditional in the family sense. I've always been that way." According to Gaga, Joanne Germanotta – her aunt who died of lupus aged 19 – lives on through her and inspires all of her music and art. Joanne's date of death is tattooed on Gaga's body and, despite dying 12 years before her birth, Gaga commented, "I really believe I have two hearts. I think I actually carry two souls in my body, and that I'm living out the rest of her life and her goodness – she died a virgin, she died never having experienced all these things that we all get to love and experience in our lives." Another spiritual influence on Gaga has been the Indian physician, public speaker and writer Deepak Chopra. Labeling him a "true inspiration", she stated that "he's always reminded me to work in a life of service to my fans and to fulfill my vision and my destiny" in addition to thinking about Chopra when it comes to her work as a musician: "I want so much for it to go beyond the music for my fans."

Musically, Gaga takes influence from numerous musicians from dance-pop singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson to glam rock artists like David Bowie and Queen whilst employing the theatrics of artists like Andy Warhol and of her musical theatre roots in performance. The Queen song "Radio Ga Ga" inspired her stage name: "I adored Freddie Mercury and Queen had a hit called 'Radio Gaga'. That's why I love the name [...] Freddie was unique—one of the biggest personalities in the whole of pop music," she commented. Gaga receives regular comparisons to recording artist Madonna who admits that she sees herself reflected in Gaga. In response to the comparisons, Gaga stated, "I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I've made it my goal to revolutionize pop music. The last revolution was launched by Madonna 25 years ago" in addition to commenting that "there is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me. I am the hugest fan personally and professionally." Like Madonna, Gaga has continued to reinvent herself and, over the years of her career, has drawn musical inspiration from a diverse mix of artists including Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, Grace Jones, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie singer Debbie Harry, Scissor Sisters, Prince, Marilyn Manson and Yoko Ono.

Gaga has identified fashion as a major influence and has been stylistically compared to English eccentrics Leigh Bowery and Isabella Blow and to American recording artist Cher. She commented that "as a child, she somehow absorbed Cher's out-there fashion sense and made it her own." She has considered Donatella Versace her muse and the late British fashion designer and close friend Alexander McQueen as an inspiration, admitting that "I miss Lee every time I get dressed" while channeling him in some of her work. Modeled on Andy Warhol's Factory, Gaga has her own creative production team, which she handles personally, called the Haus of Gaga, who create many of her clothes, stage props, and hairdos. Her adoration of fashion came from her mother, who she stated was "always very well kept and beautiful." "When I'm writing music, I'm thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It's all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it's everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us." The Global Language Monitor named "Lady Gaga" as the Top Fashion Buzzword with her trademark "no pants" a close third. ''Entertainment Weekly'' put her outfits on its end of the decade "best-of" list, saying, "Whether it's a dress made of Muppets or strategically placed bubbles, Gaga's outré ensembles brought performance art into the mainstream." Gaga made her runway debut at Thierry Mugler's Paris fashion show in March 2011 where she wore items from Nicola Formichetti's debut women's wear collection. In June of the same year, she won the Council of Fashion Designers of America Award for Fashion Icon. ''Time Magazine'' placed Gaga on their "All-Time 100 Fashion Icons List" amongst some of Gaga's inspirations such as Micheal Jackson, Madonna, and the The Beatles, stating: "Lady Gaga is just as notorious for her outrageous style as she is for her pop hits. After all, Gaga, born Stefani Germanotta, has sported outfits made from plastic bubbles, Kermit the Frog dolls, and raw meat." She has since devoted her time as a fashion columnist for ''V'' magazine, where she has written about her creative process, her studying of the world of pop culture, and her ability to tune into the evolution of pop-culture meme.

In August 2011 she sent to her 15 millions followers that she had at that time on Twitter, a quote about creativity from the book "Creativity" by Osho, which led journalists, on 28 October of the same year, on her arrival to India for the inauguration of a big Formula One motorsport event, to ask her about her connection to him, to which Gaga said she was influenced by his work and that for her, "the creativity is the greatest way of rebellion": "Equality", she concluded, "is one of the most important things in my life".

Musical style

Continually experimenting with new musical ideas and images, Gaga's musical and performance style is the subject of much analysis and scrutiny from critics. She professes that she is "liberating" herself by constantly reinventing her sound and image, insisting that she has been drawn to such a practice since her childhood. Vocally, Gaga possesses the range of a contralto and exhibits "overwhelming expression, instinctive vocal phrasing, '80s rock reminiscent chest belts and animalistic vocal ticks" while being able to move through 2.4 octaves. Refusing to lip sync, Gaga – whose range is frequently compared to those of Madonna and Gwen Stefani – has manipulated her vocal style over the course of her career yet considers ''Born This Way'' (2011) "much more vocally up to par with what I've always been capable of." In summation of her voice, ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote, "There's an immense emotional intelligence behind the way she uses her voice. Almost never does she overwhelm a song with her vocal ability, recognizing instead that artistry is to be found in nuance rather than lung power."

Although her early lyrics have been criticized for lacking intellectual stimulation, "[Gaga] does manage to get you moving and grooving at an almost effortless pace." She admits that her songwriting has been misinterpreted; her friend and blogger Perez Hilton articulated her message in a clearer way: "you write really deep intelligent lyrics with shallow concepts." Gaga opined, "Perez is very intelligent and clearly listened to my record from beginning to end, and he is correct." "I love songwriting. It's so funny – I will just jam around in my underwear or I could be washing my dishes. I wrote several songs just at the piano," she confesses. Gaga believes that "all good music can be played at a piano and still sound like a hit." She has covered a wide variety of topics in her songs: while ''The Fame'' (2008) meditates on the lust for stardom, ''The Fame Monster'' (2009) expresses fame's dark side through monster metaphors. ''Born This Way'' (2011) is sung in English, French, German and Spanish and includes common themes in Gaga's controversial songwriting like love, sex, religion, money, drugs, identity, liberation, sexuality, freedom and individualism.

The structure of her music is said to echo classic 1980s pop and 1990s Europop. Her debut album ''The Fame'' (2008) provoked ''The Sunday Times'' to assert "in combining music, fashion, art and technology, [Gaga] evokes Madonna, Gwen Stefani circa 'Hollaback Girl', Kylie Minogue 2001 or Grace Jones right now" and a critic from ''The Boston Globe'' to comment that she draws "obvious inspirations from Madonna to Gwen Stefani... in [her] girlish but sturdy pipes and bubbly beats." Music critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Everything about Gaga came from electroclash, except the music, which wasn't particularly 1980s, just ruthlessly catchy naughties pop glazed with Auto-Tune and undergirded with R&B;-ish beats." The follow-up ''The Fame Monster'' (2009), saw Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q" while ''Born This Way'' (2011) also draws on the records of her childhood and still has the "electro-sleaze beats and Eurodisco chorus chants" of its predecessor but includes genres as diverse as opera, heavy metal, disco, and rock and roll. "There isn't a subtle moment on the album, but even at its nuttiest, the music is full of wide-awake emotional details," wrote ''Rolling Stone'', who concluded: "The more excessive Gaga gets, the more honest she sounds."

Music videos and performances

With constant costume changes, backup dancers, and provocative visuals, Gaga's music videos are often described as short films. "Being provocative is not just about getting people's attention. It's about saying something that really affects people in a real way, in a positive way," she professes. Exploring bondage and sadomasochism in addition to highlighting prevalent feminist themes, "the three central themes that shape Lady Gaga's music videos are sex, violence, and power." "Vaudevillian and carnal, Lady Gaga has got the knack of sending rape-like fantasies—in songs and videos that double as catch club hits—to the top of the charts," wrote one critic. "Whether it is physical violence or sexual exploitation, these videos offer vivid depictions of male power over women's bodies," wrote another. While she labels herself "a little bit of a feminist" (she rejects man-hating feminism) and asserts that she is "sexually empowering women," Gaga strives to empower young women to stand up for what they believe in. She also attempts to liberate her fans so they can feel "less alone." "She not only reiterates her assertion of total originality," professed pop critic Ann Powers, "but also finesses it until it's both a philosophical stance about how constructing a persona from pop-cultural sources can be an expression of a person's truth—a la those drag queens Gaga sincerely admires—and a bit of a feminist act." In summation of her videos, ''Rolling Stone'' used the rhetoric: "does anyone look to a Lady Gaga video for restraint?"

Her performances are described as "highly entertaining and innovative"; the blood-spurting performance of "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was described as "eye-popping" by MTV. She continued the "blood soaked" theme during The Monster Ball Tour, in which she wore a revealing leather corset and was "attacked" by a performer dressed in black who gnaws on her throat, causing "blood" to spurt down her chest, after which she lies "dying" in a pool of blood. Her performances of that scene in England triggered protests from family groups and fans in the aftermath of a local tragedy, in which a taxi driver had murdered 12 people. "What happened in Bradford is very fresh in people's minds and given all the violence which happened in Cumbria just hours earlier, it was insensitive," said Lynn Costello of Mothers Against Violence. Her unconventionality continued at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards: performing in drag as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, and delivering a lovesick monologue before a performance of her song "You and I". Some have defended her flamboyant and provocative behavior. "Well, she's Lady Gaga," Chris Rock said. "She's not 'Lady Behave Yourself.' Do you want great behavior from a person named Gaga? Is this what you were expecting?" As Gaga's choreographer and creative director, Laurieann Gibson provided material for her shows and videos for four years. However, the pair parted in November 2011; Gaga replacing her with Gibson's assistant Richard Jackson. Gaga admits to being a perfectionist when it comes to her elaborate shows. "I'm very bossy. I can scream my head off if I see one light fixture out. I'm very detailed – every minute of the show has got to be perfect."

Public image

While ''Rolling Stone'' named Gaga the "Queen of Pop" in 2011, public reception of Gaga's music, fashion sense and persona are mixed. Her status as a role model, self-esteem booster for her fans, trailblazer and fashion icon who breathes new life into the industry is by turns affirmed and denied. Gaga's albums have received mostly positive reviews and critics have pointed out her unique place in pop music, the need for new movements in popular culture, the attention Gaga brings to modern social issues, and the inherently subjective nature of her art. In view of her influence on modern culture and her rise to global fame, sociologist Mathieu Deflem of the University of South Carolina has organized a course titled "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" since spring 2011 with the objective of unravelling "some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga." When Gaga briefly met with US president Barack Obama at a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser, he described the interaction as "intimidating" as she was dressed in 16-inch heels making her undoubtedly the tallest woman in the room.

Contrary to her outré style, the ''New York Post'' described her early look as like "a refugee from ''Jersey Shore''" with "big black hair, heavy eye makeup and tight, revealing clothes." Gaga is a natural brunette; she bleached her hair blonde because she was often mistaken for Amy Winehouse. She has nine tattoos on the left side of her body (her father has banned etchings on her right): a unicorn head with a ribbon wrapped around its horn that says "Born This Way"; a small heart with "dad" written inside it; several white roses; a treble clef; three daises; "Tokyo Love" with a little heart; "Little Monsters" written in cursive; a peace symbol, which was inspired by John Lennon, whom she stated was her hero; and a curling German script on her left arm quoting the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, her favorite writer, commenting that his "philosophy of solitude" spoke to her. In a question posed about the necessary procedure to attach the prosthetics to give the unconventional appearance of recent horn-like ridges on her cheekbones, temples, and shoulders, Gaga responded, "They're not prosthetics, they're my bones." She also clarified that they were not the result of plastic surgery, believing such surgery to only be the modern byproduct of fame-induced insecurity to which she does not subscribe. The interviewer's further probing brought Gaga to the conclusion that they are an artistic representation of her inner inspirational light and part of the "performance piece" that is her musical persona: an inevitability of her becoming who she now is.

Towards the end of 2008, comparisons were made between the fashions of Gaga and recording artist Christina Aguilera that noted similarities in their styling, hair, and make-up. Aguilera stated that she was "completely unaware of [Gaga]" and "didn't know if it [was] a man or a woman." Gaga released a statement in which she welcomed the comparisons due to the attention providing useful publicity, saying, "She's such a huge star and if anything I should send her flowers, because a lot of people in America didn't know who I was until that whole thing happened. It really put me on the map in a way." When interviewed by Barbara Walters for her annual ABC News special ''10 Most Fascinating People'' in 2009, Gaga dismissed the claim that she is intersex as an urban legend. Responding to a question on this issue, she stated, "At first it was very strange and everyone sorta said, 'That's really quite a story!' But in a sense, I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny." In addition to Aguilera's statement, comparisons continued into 2010, when Aguilera released the music video of her single "Not Myself Tonight". Critics noted similarities between the song and its accompanying music video with Gaga's video for "Bad Romance". There have also been similar comparisons made between Gaga's style and that of fashion icon Dale Bozzio from the band Missing Persons. Some have considered their respective images to be strikingly parallel although fans of Missing Persons note that Bozzio had pioneered the look more than thirty years earlier.

While devout followers call Gaga "Mother Monster", Gaga often refers to her fans as "Little Monsters" which has been tattooed on "the arm that holds my mic" in dedication. Her treatment of her "Little Monsters" has inspired criticism, due to the highly commercial nature of her music and image. To some, this dichotomy contravenes the concept of outsider culture. Camille Paglia in her 2010 cover story "Lady Gaga and the death of sex" in ''The Sunday Times'' asserts that Gaga "is more an identity thief than an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for the freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed when she is none of those." Writing for ''The Guardian'', Kitty Empire opined that the dichotomy "...allows the viewer to have a 'transgressive' experience without being required to think. At [her performance's] core, though, is the idea that Gaga is at one with the freaks and outcasts. The Monster Ball is where we can all be free. This is arrant nonsense, as the scads of people buying Gaga's cunningly commercial music are not limited to the niche worlds of drag queens and hip night creatures from which she draws her inspiration. But Gaga seems sincere."

Philanthropy

Besides her career in music, Gaga has also contributed to various charities. For natural disasters, Gaga has helped various relief efforts. Although declining an invitation to appear on the single "We Are the World 25" to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she donated the proceeds of her January 24, 2010 concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall to the country's reconstruction relief fund. All profits from her official online store on that day were also donated. Gaga announced that an estimated total of US$500,000 was collected for the fund. Hours after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11, 2011, Gaga tweeted a message and a link to Japan Prayer Bracelets. All revenue from a bracelet she designed in conjunction with the company was donated to relief efforts. As of March 29, 2011, the bracelets raised $1.5 million. However, attorney Alyson Oliver filed a lawsuit against Gaga in Detroit in June 2011, noting that the bracelet was subject to a sales tax and an extra $3.99 shipping charge was added to the price. She also believed that not all proceeds from the bracelets would go to the relief efforts, demanding a public accounting of the campaign and refunds for people who had bought the bracelet. Gaga's spokesperson called the lawsuit "meritless" and "misleading". On June 25, 2011, Gaga performed at MTV Japan's charity show in Makuhari Messe, which benefited the Japanese Red Cross.

HIV and AIDS

Gaga also contributes in the fight against HIV and AIDS, focusing on educating young women about the risks of the disease. In collaboration with Cyndi Lauper, Gaga joined forces with MAC Cosmetics to launch a line of lipstick under their supplementary cosmetic line, Viva Glam. Titled Viva Glam Gaga and Viva Glam Cyndi for each contributor respectively, all net proceeds of the lipstick line were donated to the cosmetic company's campaign to prevent HIV and AIDS worldwide. In a press release, Gaga declared, "I don't want Viva Glam to be just a lipstick you buy to help a cause. I want it to be a reminder when you go out at night to put a condom in your purse right next to your lipstick." The sales of Gaga-endorsed Viva Glam lipstick and lipgloss have raised more than $202 million to fight HIV and AIDS.

Born This Way Foundation

As a humanitarian, she has launched her own non-profit organization, the Born This Way Foundation, which focuses on youth empowerment and issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring, and career development. "My mother and I have initiated a passion project. We call it the Born This Way Foundation," Gaga said in a statement about the foundation, which takes its name from the 2011 single and album. "Together we hope to establish a standard of Bravery and Kindness, as well as a community worldwide that protects and nurtures others in the face of bullying and abandonment." The foundation will work with a number of partners, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The California Endowment and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She also jumped into the debate surrounding SB 1070, Arizona's recently-enacted anti-immigration law, after premiering her ''Born This Way'' song "Americano" on the Guadalajara stop of The Monster Ball Tour in Mexico, telling the local press that she could not "stand by many of the unjust immigration laws" in the US. A devoted advocate for the LGBT community, Gaga is also an outspoken activist for LGBT rights worldwide. On February 29, 2012, Gaga and Oprah Winfrey visited Harvard University to launch her Born This Way Foundation.

LGBT advocacy

Gaga attributes much of her early success as a mainstream artist to her gay fans and is considered to be a gay icon. Early in her career she had difficulty getting radio airplay, and stated, "The turning point for me was the gay community. I've got so many gay fans and they're so loyal to me and they really lifted me up. They'll always stand by me and I'll always stand by them. It's not an easy thing to create a fanbase." She thanked FlyLife, a Manhattan-based LGBT marketing company with whom her label Interscope works, in the liner notes of ''The Fame'', saying, "I love you so much. You were the first heartbeat in this project, and your support and brilliance means the world to me. I will always fight for the gay community hand in hand with this incredible team." One of her first televised performances was in May 2008 at the NewNowNext Awards, an awards show aired by the LGBT television network Logo, where she sang her song "Just Dance". In June of the same year, she performed the song again at the San Francisco Pride event.

After ''The Fame'' was released, she revealed that the song "Poker Face" was about her bisexuality. In an interview with ''Rolling Stone'', she spoke about how her boyfriends tended to react to her bisexuality, saying "The fact that I'm into women, they're all intimidated by it. It makes them uncomfortable. They're like, 'I don't need to have a threesome. I'm happy with just you'." When she appeared as a guest on ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' in May 2009, she praised DeGeneres for being "an inspiration for women and for the gay community". She proclaimed that the October 11, 2009 National Equality March rally on the National Mall was "the single most important event of her career." As she exited, she left with an exultant "Bless God and bless the gays," similar to her 2009 MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech for Best New Artist a month earlier. At the Human Rights Campaign Dinner, held the same weekend as the rally, she performed a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" declaring that "I'm not going to [play] one of my songs tonight because tonight is not about me, it's about you." She changed the original lyrics of the song to reflect the death of Matthew Shepard, a college student murdered because of his sexuality.

Gaga attended the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards accompanied by four service members of the United States Armed Forces (Mike Almy, David Hall, Katie Miller and Stacy Vasquez), all of whom, under the United States military's "Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy, had been prohibited from serving openly because of their sexuality. In addition, Gaga wore a meat dress to the ceremony which was supplemented by boots, a purse and a hat that were all fabricated from the flesh of a dead animal. Partly awarded in recognition of the dress, Vogue.com UK named her one of the Best Dressed people of 2010 while ''Time'' magazine's named the dress the Fashion Statement of 2010, it received divided opinions – evoking the attention of worldwide media but invoking the fury of animal rights organization PETA. She denied any intention of causing disrespect to any person or organization and wished for the dress to be interpreted as a statement of human rights with focus upon those in the LGBT community, adding that "If we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones."

She later released three videos on YouTube urging her fans to contact their Senators in an effort to overturn the policy. In late September 2010 she spoke at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's "4the14K" Rally in Deering Oaks Park in Portland, Maine. The name of the rally signified the number – an estimated 14,000 – of service members discharged under the DADT policy at the time. During her remarks, she urged members of the U.S. Senate (and in particular, moderate Republican Senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) to vote in favor of legislation that would repeal the DADT policy. Following this event, editors of ''The Advocate'' commented that she had become "the real fierce advocate" for gays and lesbians, one that Barack Obama had promised to be.

Gaga appeared at Europride, a pan-European international event dedicated to LGBT pride, held in Rome in June 2011. In a nearly twenty-minute speech, she criticized the intolerant state of gay rights in many European countries and described homosexuals as "revolutionaries of love" before performing acoustic renderings of "Born This Way" and "The Edge of Glory" in front of thousands at the Circus Maximus. She stated that "Today and every day we fight for freedom. We fight for justice. We beckon for compassion, understanding and above all we want full equality now". Gaga revealed that she is often questioned why she dedicates herself to "gayspeak" and "how gay" she is, to which, she told the audience: "Why is this question, why is this issue so important? My answer is: I am a child of diversity, I am one with my generation, I feel a moral obligation as a woman, or a man, to exercise my revolutionary potential and make the world a better place." She then joked: "On a gay scale from 1 to 10, I'm a Judy Garland fucking 42."

Discography

''The Fame'' (2008)

''The Fame Monster'' (2009)

''Born This Way'' (2011)

Filmography

''Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden'' (2011)

''A Very Gaga Thanksgiving'' (2011)

Concert tours

The Fame Ball Tour (2009)

Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga (2009–10) (canceled)

The Monster Ball Tour (2009–11)

The Born This Way Ball Tour (2012–13)

See also

List of awards and nominations received by Lady Gaga

Honorific nicknames in popular music

List of best-selling music artists

References

Further reading

Monster Anthems (2011) by Robert Christgau

External links

Slide show ''Vanity Fair''

Category:1986 births Category:American contraltos Category:American dance musicians Category:American electronic musicians Category:American female pop singers Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American performance artists Category:American pop singer-songwriters Category:American Roman Catholics Category:Androgyny Category:Bisexual musicians Category:Brit Award winners Category:Echo winners Category:English-language singers Category:Feminist musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Interscope Records artists Category:Keytarists Category:LGBT Christians Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:LGBT rights activists Category:Living people Category:NME Awards winners Category:American dancers Category:People from Manhattan Category:Pseudonymous musicians Category:Singers from New York City Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:Synthpop musicians Category:Tisch School of the Arts alumni Category:Wonky Pop acts

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Team name	Justice League
Publisher	DC Comics
Debut	''The Brave and the Bold'' (vol. 1) #28 (February/March 1960)
Creators	Gardner Fox
Base	The Hall and the SatelliteWatchtowerThe RefugeJLI EmbassiesDetroit BunkerSatelliteSecret Sanctuary
Memberlist	List of Justice League members
Cat	teams
Subcat	DC Comics
Hero	y
Sortkey	Justice League }}

The Justice League, also called the Justice League of America or JLA, is a fictional superhero team that appears in comic books published by DC Comics.

First appearing in ''The Brave and the Bold'' #28 (February/March 1960), the League originally appeared with a line-up that included Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter. However, the team roster has been rotated throughout the years with characters such as Green Arrow, Captain Marvel, Black Canary, the Atom, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Plastic Man, Red Tornado, Firestorm, Zatanna, other Green Lanterns, and dozens of others. The team received its own comic book title in October 1960, when the first issue was published, and would continue to #261 in April 1987, which was the final issue. Throughout the years, various incarnations or subsections of the team have operated as Justice League America, Justice League Europe, Justice League International, Justice League Task Force, Justice League Elite, and Extreme Justice.

Various comic book series featuring the League have remained generally popular with fans since inception and in most incarnations, its roster includes DC's most popular characters. The League concept has also been adapted into various other entertainment media, including the classic Saturday morning ''Super Friends'' animated series (1973–1986), an unproduced ''Justice League of America'' live-action series, and most recently the animated series ''Justice League'' (2001–2004) and ''Justice League Unlimited'' (2004–2006). A live-action film was in the works in 2008 before being shelved.

Publication history

Silver and Bronze Age / ''Justice League of America''

title	Justice League of America
schedule	Monthly
format	Ongoing
publisher	DC Comics
date	October 1960 – April 1987
issues	261
writers	Gardner FoxGerry Conway
pencillers	Mike SekowskyDick DillinGeorge Pérez
inkers	Sid GreeneDick GiordanoFrank McLaughlin
creators	Gardner FoxMike Sekowsky }}

Having successfully reintroduced a number of their Golden Age superhero characters (Flash, Green Lantern, etc.) during the late 1950s, DC Comics asked writer Gardner Fox to reintroduce the Justice Society of America. Fox, influenced by the popularity of the National Football League and Major League Baseball, decided to change the name of the team from Justice ''Society'' to Justice ''League''. The Justice League of America debuted in ''The Brave and the Bold'' #28 (1960), and after two further appearances in that title, got their own series which quickly became one of the company's best-selling titles. Fox and artist Mike Sekowsky were the creative team for the title's first eight years. Sekowsky's last issue was #63 (June 1968) and Fox departed with #65 (September 1968).

The initial Justice League lineup included seven of the DC superheroes being published regularly at that time: Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder Woman. However, Superman and Batman barely featured in most of the stories, not even appearing on the cover most of the time. Three of DC's other surviving or revived characters (Green Arrow, Atom, and Hawkman) were added to the roster over the next four years, the latter two having been revamped by Gardner Fox himself. JLA's early success was indirectly responsible for the creation of the Fantastic Four. In his autobiography Stan Lee relates how, during a round of golf, DC publisher Jack Liebowitz mentioned to Marvel-Timely owner Martin Goodman how well DC's new book (''Justice League'') was selling. Later that day Goodman told Lee to come up with a team of superheroes for Marvel; Lee and Jack Kirby produced the Fantastic Four.

The Justice League operated from a secret cave outside of the small town of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. A teenager named Lucas "Snapper" Carr tagged along on missions, and he became both the team's mascot and an official member. Snapper, noted for speaking in beatnik dialect and snapping his fingers, helped the League to defeat giant space starfish Starro the Conqueror in the team's first appearance. In ''Justice League of America'' #77 (December 1969), Snapper was tricked into betraying the cave headquarters' secret location to the Joker, resulting in his resignation from the team. His resignation followed the resignations of two of the League's original members, Wonder Woman (in ''Justice League of America'' #69) and J'onn J'onzz (in ''Justice League of America'' #71).

Satellite years

In need of a new secure headquarters, the Justice League moved into an orbiting satellite headquarters in ''Justice League of America'' #78 (February 1970). Black Canary, Phantom Stranger, Elongated Man, Red Tornado, Hawkwoman, Zatanna and Firestorm all joined the team during this period, and Wonder Woman returned. In the first two thirds or so of this era, the team was sometimes said to have a twelve-member limit and/or a "no duplication of powers" policy; this was formally rescinded in ''Justice League of America'' #146, allowing Hawkgirl to join.

Those involved in producing the ''Justice League of America'' comic during the 1970s include writers Denny O'Neil, Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Elliot S! Maggin, Cary Bates, E. Nelson Bridwell, Steve Englehart and Gerry Conway, with Dick Dillin handling the art chores from issues #64-181, missing only one issue, #153 and did only a framing sequence for #157.

Len Wein wrote issues #100–114 wherein he and Dillin re-introduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory in issues #100-102 and the Freedom Fighters in issues #107-108. In the fall of 1972, Wein and writers Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart crafted a metafictional unofficial crossover spanning titles from both major comics companies. Each comic featured Englehart, Conway, and Wein, as well as Wein's first wife Glynis, interacting with Marvel or DC characters at the Rutland Halloween Parade in Rutland, Vermont. Beginning in ''Amazing Adventures'' #16 (by Englehart with art by Bob Brown and Frank McLaughlin), the story continued in ''Justice League of America'' #103 (by Wein, Dillin and Dick Giordano), and concluded in ''Thor'' #207 (by Conway and penciler John Buscema). As Englehart explained in 2010, "It certainly seemed like a radical concept and we knew that we had to be subtle (laughs) and each story had to stand on its own, but we really worked it out. It's really worthwhile to read those stories back to back to back — it didn't matter to us that one was at DC and two were at Marvel — I think it was us being creative, thinking what would be really cool to do." Libra, a supervillain created by Wein and Dillin in ''Justice League of America'' #111 (May-June 1974), would play a leading role in Grant Morrison's ''Final Crisis'' storyline in 2008.

Writer Gerry Conway had a lengthy association with the title as well. His first ''JLA'' story appeared in issue #125 (December 1975) and he became the series' regular writer with issue #151 (February 1978). With a few exceptions, Conway would write the team's adventures until issue #255 (October 1986). After Dick Dillin's death, George Pérez, Don Heck, and Rich Buckler would rotate as artist on the title. The double-sized anniversary issue #200 (March 1982) was a "jam" featuring a story written by Conway, a framing sequence drawn by Pérez, and chapters drawn by Pat Broderick, Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano, Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Brian Bolland, and Joe Kubert. Bolland's chapter gave the artist his "first stab at drawing Batman." Pérez would leave the title as of issue #200 to concentrate on ''The New Teen Titans'' although he would contribute covers to the ''JLA'' through issue #220 (November 1983).

Detroit

Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of their other team books, which focused upon heroes in their late teens/early 20s, Gerry Conway and artist Chuck Patton revamped the Justice League series. After most of the original heroes failed to arrive in order to help the team fend off an invasion of Martians, Aquaman dissolved the League and reformatted its charter to only allow heroes who would devote their full time to the roster. The new team initially consisted of Aquaman, Zatanna, Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, the Vixen, and a trio of teenage heroes Gypsy, Steel, and Vibe. Aquaman would leave the team after a year and was replaced as leader by the Martian Manhunter. Because of his own edict of only wanting full-time heroes in the League, Aquaman's estranged wife Mera gave him an ultimatum to stay with either the group or with her to salvage their marriage.

Fan response to the series' new direction was largely negative and even the return of Batman to the team in ''Justice League of America'' #250 could not halt the decline of the series. Reader sentiment regarding this incarnation of the Justice League has since been metatextually reflected in the comics themselves. In volume 2 issue #31 the character of Zatanna says, "With our current line-up we couldn't beat Justice League Detroit!" to which Dr. Light responds, "Don't be ridiculous. Everybody can beat Detroit!" The final storyline for the original ''Justice League of America'' series (#258-261) by writer J. M. DeMatteis and artist Luke McDonnell, culminated a story-arc involving long-time Justice League enemy Professor Ivo's murders of Vibe and Steel and the resignations of Vixen, Gypsy, and the Elongated Man during the events of DC's ''Legends'' mini-series, which saw the team disband.

Modern incarnations

''Justice League International''

The 1986 company-wide crossover featured the formation of a new Justice League. The new team was dubbed "Justice League" then "Justice League International" (JLI) and was given a mandate with less of an American focus. The new series, written by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis with art by Kevin Maguire (and later Adam Hughes), added quirky humor to the team's stories. In this incarnation, the membership consisted partly of heroes from Earths that, prior to their merging in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, were separate. The initial team included Batman, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Doctor Light (a new Japanese female character, emerging from the Crisis of Infinite Earths, not the supervillain who had appeared previously), Doctor Fate, Martian Manhunter, Mister Miracle, and Guy Gardner; and soon after inception, added Booster Gold, Captain Atom, Fire (then known as the Global Guardians' Green Flame), Ice (then known as the Global Guardians' Icemaiden), and two Rocket Reds (one was a Manhunter spy, and one was Dimitri Pushkin). The Giffen/DeMatteis team worked on ''Justice League'' for five years and closed out their run with the "Breakdowns" storyline in 1991 and 1992. The series' humorous tone and high level of characterization proved very popular but writers following Giffen and DeMatteis were unable to maintain the same balance of humor and heroics, resulting in the decline of the series' popularity. New writers gave the storylines a more serious tone and re-focused the team on America, resulting in the book being re-branded ''Justice League America''. By the mid- to late-1990s, with the series' commercial success fading, it was eventually canceled, along with spinoffs ''Justice League Europe'', ''Extreme Justice'', and ''Justice League Task Force''.

''JLA''

title	JLA
schedule	Monthly
format	Ongoing
publisher	DC Comics
date	January 1997 – February 2006
issues	125
writers	Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly, Denny O'Neil, Chuck Austen, Kurt Busiek, Geoff Johns, Allan Heinberg, Bob Harras
pencillers	Howard PorterBryan HitchDoug Mahnke
inkers	John DellPaul Neary
creators	Grant MorrisonHoward Porter }}

The low sales of the various Justice League spinoff books prompted DC to revamp the League as a single team (all the various branch teams were disbanded) on a single title. A Justice League of America formed in the September 1996 limited series ''Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare'' by Mark Waid and Fabian Nicieza, which reunited the "Original Seven" of the League for the first time since Crisis on Infinite Earths. In 1997, DC Comics launched a new Justice League series titled ''JLA'', written by Grant Morrison with art by Howard Porter and inker John Dell.

This series, in an attempt at a "back-to-basics" approach, used as its core the team's original seven members (or their successors): Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash (Wally West), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), and the Martian Manhunter. Additionally, the team received a new headquarters, the "Watchtower", based on the Moon. Morrison introduced the idea of the JLA allegorically representing a pantheon of gods, with their different powers and personalities, incorporating such characters as Zauriel, Big Barda, Orion, Huntress, Barbara Gordon (Oracle), Steel (John Henry Irons), and Plastic Man. He also had temporaries as Aztek, Tomorrow Woman, and Green Arrow (Connor Hawke).

Under Morrison, the series pitted the League against a variety of enemies, ranging from murderous White Martians, renegade angels, a new incarnation of the Injustice Gang led by Lex Luthor, the Key awakened from a coma, to the villainy of new villain Prometheus, the alien species of existing JLA villain Starro the Conqueror (revamped as a monstrous creature known as "The Star Conquerer") and Captain Atom villain General Wade Eiling, who transformed a cadre of Marines into deformed super-powered beings known as "The Ultra-Marines" as well as put his mind into the body of the indestructible Shaggy Man, and a futuristic Darkseid. Morrison's run itself featured a myth-arc involving the New Gods preparing the Earth for battle against a creature known as "Maggedon", a super-sentient weapon of mass destruction that was approaching Earth, that culminated in the final Morrison arc "World War III".

The run also had its share of editorial problems, such as Morrison's need to adapt to Superman's changing powers, the death of Wonder Woman and the loss of Green Arrow Connor Hawke, due to plans for a Kevin Smith-penned ''Green Arrow'' series. Still, ''JLA'' quickly became DC's best-selling title, a position it enjoyed off and on for several years. Despite this, DC did not create continuing spinoff series as it had done before.

Morrison departed with issue #41, after which the book saw runs by Mark Waid and Joe Kelly. Subsequent to this, the series switched to a series of rotating writers with issue #91 while Kelly (via ''JLA'' #100) was given a the mini-series ''Justice League Elite'', which featured Green Arrow, Flash, and several other Kelly created characters. The new format saw stories by John Byrne, Chuck Austen, and Kurt Busiek. Geoff Johns and Allan Heinberg would take over the book with #115, which saw a multi-part storyline that dealt with the aftermath of ''Identity Crisis'', and served as a lead-in to the events of "Infinite Crisis", as Superboy-Prime destroyed the Watchtower at the end of issue #119. Bob Harras would ultimately write the book's final storyline (''JLA'' #120-125) as Green Arrow struggled in vain to keep the League afloat.

''52''

In ''52'' Week 24, Firestorm recruits a group to reform the Justice League. It consists of Firehawk, Super-Chief, Bulleteer, and Ambush Bug. They fight a deranged Skeets who takes Super-Chief's powers and kills him as well as numerous people given powers by Lex Luthor's Everyman Project. Afterward, Firestorm breaks up the team.

Also in the series, Luthor's new Infinity, Inc. was informally referred to as a "Justice League" in solicitations and on covers.

''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2)

title	Justice League of America (vol. 2)
schedule	Monthly
format	Ongoing
publisher	DC Comics
date	August 2006 – August 2011
issues	60 (including #0) as of August 2011
writers	Brad MeltzerDwayne McDuffieLen WeinJames Robinson
pencillers	Ed BenesMark BagleyBrett Booth
creators	Brad MeltzerEd Benes }}

One year after the events of ''Infinite Crisis'', Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman reunite in the Batcave to re-form the League in ''Justice League of America'' #0, the kick-off for a new series by Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes. The series featured a roster which included Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Black Canary, Red Arrow (Green Arrow's former sidekick), Red Tornado, Vixen, Black Lightning, and Hawkgirl. The first arc of the series focused upon Red Tornado and pitted the team against a new intelligent incarnation of Solomon Grundy and the rebuilt Amazo. The new incarnation of the team has two main headquarters, linked by a transporter. The first site is The Hall, which in mainstream DC Universe is a refurnished version of the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron's former headquarters located in Washington, D.C. Black Canary is elected as the first official Chairperson after the fight against Amazo and Solomon Grundy, and led both the Justice League and Justice Society in a complex quest to reunite time-lost members of the pre-Crisis Legion of Super-Heroes, who had been sent back in time to free both Bart Allen and Flash from the other dimensional realm of the Speed Force. Meltzer left the series at the end of issue #12, with one of his subplots (Per Degaton, a pre-nuclear fire mutation version of Despero, and a circa 1948 version of the Ultra-Humanite gathering for an unknown plot) resolved in the pages of ''Booster Gold''.

Dwayne McDuffie took over the writing job with the ''Justice League Anniversary Special'' and the main book with issue #13. Due to DC Comics seeking to launch a spin-off Justice League book led by Hal Jordan, the character was removed from the main League series and replaced by John Stewart. Firestorm also joined the roster, with the series entering into a series of tie-in storylines towards ''Countdown to Final Crisis'', with the arrest of a large number of supervillains (gathered by Lex Luthor and Deathstroke to attack the League on the eve of the wedding of Black Canary and Green Arrow) setting up the ''Salvation Run'' tie-in miniseries. Also, roster members Red Tornado and Geo-Force were written out. McDuffie's initial issues received mixed reviews and experienced minor conroversy due to fan favorite Hal Jordan's removal in favor of Stewart. Jordan ended up being restored to the roster by issue #19 of the series, only to be removed once again by issue #31 once ''Justice League: Cry for Justice'' was completed and ready to be shipped.

Issue #21 saw the return of Libra and the Human Flame, setting up their appearances in ''Final Crisis''. Later issues would resolve issues involving Vixen's power level increase and see the integration of the Milestone Comics characters the Shadow Cabinet and Icon, who fought the Justice League over the remains of the villainous Doctor Light. The group suffered greater losses during ''Final Crisis'' with the deaths of Martian Manhunter and Batman, as well as the resignations of Superman and Wonder Woman, who could no longer devote themselves full-time to the League due to the events of the ''New Krypton'' and ''Rise of the Olympian'' storylines in their respective titles. Hal Jordan would also resign as well, clearing the way for John Stewart's return to the team. Black Canary (now team leader) found herself declaring the League no more, though the group would continue with Canary taking a secondary role in the group. Her last act as leader would be assigning John Stewart and Firestorm the task of hunting down the Human Flame, for his part in the murder of Martian Manhunter, as seen in the ''Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!'' miniseries.

Vixen would take over the team, with Plastic Man rejoining the group. Len Wein wrote a three-part fill-in story for ''Justice League of America'' that ran from #35 to #37. McDuffie was fired from the title before he could return, after discussion postings to the DC Comics message board, detailing behind-the-scenes creative decisions on his run, were republished in the rumor column "Lying In The Gutter". James Robinson was announced as the new ''Justice League of America'' writer.

Wein's fill-in run would be published as ''Justice League: Cry For Justice'' neared its conclusion, as Vixen and Black Canary's group (sans John Stewart) would confront Hal Jordan and Green Arrow's makeshift Justice League group, which had stumbled upon a plot by the villain Prometheus that had resulted in much death and carnage. During the confrontation over Jordan's group using torture to extract information from the villains being blackmailed into carrying out Prometheus' plan, both Roy Harper and Supergirl would discover that one of Jordan's heroes, Captain Marvel Jr., was really Prometheus in disguise. In the ensuing battle, the League would suffer horrible losses: Roy Harper was maimed and his daughter Lian and hundreds of thousands of people in Star City would be killed by a doomsday device Prometheus activated. Vixen would have her leg broken and Plastic Man would have his powers permanently scrambled, making him a slowly disintegrating puddle creature. To save other cities from being destroyed like Star City, the League reluctantly allowed Prometheus to go free. However, Green Arrow (with help from the Shade) would track down and kill Prometheus.

Following the events of "Blackest Night", Hal Jordan and Donna Troy begin the task of rebuilding the League, with Green Arrow, the Atom, Batman, Mon-El, Donna, Cyborg, Doctor Light, Starfire, Congorilla, and the Guardian.

At the end of issue #43, the majority of the new members leave for various reasons. Mon-El and the Guardian leave after Mon-El returns to the future, Black Canary returns to the Birds of Prey, Starfire leaves to join the R.E.B.E.L.S., Green Lantern leaves locate the other Lantern Corps Entities, and Green Arrow is forced to leave due to his fugitive status. James Robinson revealed this was due to him having second thoughts about his decision to use so many characters, and revealed that the team would have a different roster in the coming months. To replace the departed members, Jade and Jesse Quick were added to the team. Cyborg remained with the team in a reduced capacity, and was eventually given his own co-feature storyline for issues 48–50.

Under Robinson, the title experienced mixed reviews and lower (but stable) sales than under Meltzer and McDuffie, with negative fan respone being leveled at the series due to its usage of lesser known heroes instead of more popular Justice League members. DC eventually announced that Saint Walker of the Blue Lantern Corps would be joining the Justice League during a tie-in to the ''Reign of Doomsday'' crossover, but the character did not become a full member due to the cancellation of the title.

The series ended with issue #60 in August 2011, with the title being one of the numerous DC books cancelled after the ''Flashpoint'' crossover. The issue saw Batman disbanding the League due to most of the individual members becoming preoccupied with personal commitments.

''Justice League''

title	Justice League
Converted	y
schedule	Monthly
format	Ongoing
publisher	DC Comics
date	August 2011 – present
main char team	Justice League
writers	Geoff Johns
pencillers	Jim Lee
inkers	Scott Williams
colorists	Alex Sinclair
creators	Geoff JohnsJim Lee }}

In September 2011, following the "Flashpoint" storyline, all DC titles were canceled and relaunched with fifty-two new issue #1's, with DC continuity being rebooted again. ''Justice League of America'' was relaunched as ''Justice League'', written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee, and was the first of the new titles released, coming out the same day as the final issue of ''Flashpoint''. The first six issues were set five years previously and featured a brand new origin for the team, while issue 7 and beyond will take place in the present day.

The starting line-up of the team consists of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, the Flash (Barry Allen), and Cyborg, while the Atom (Ryan Choi), Hawkman (Carter Hall), Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond), Green Arrow (Oliver Queen), Aquaman's wife Mera, Deadman, recently created character Element Woman, and Lady Luck, a revamp of the Golden Age character, are set to join as additional members later on in the future.

In addition to this series, two other ''Justice League''-related titles were launched during the same month: a new ''Justice League International''; written by Dan Jurgens and drawn by Aaron Lopresti; featuring a roster consisting of Batman, Booster Gold, Rocket Red, Vixen, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner), Fire, Ice, August General in Iron, & Godiva, and ''Justice League Dark''; written by Peter Milligan and drawn by Mikel Janin; featuring a roster consisting of John Constantine, Shade, the Changing Man, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Zatanna, & new character Mindwarp.

Various origins of the Justice League

In a story told in flashback in 1963's ''Justice League of America'' #9, Earth was infiltrated by the Appelaxians. Competing alien warriors were sent to see who could conquer Earth first to determine who will become the new ruler of their home planet. The aliens' attacks drew the attentions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash (Barry Allen), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. While the superheroes individually defeated most of the invaders, the heroes fell prey to a single competitor's attack; only by working together were they able to defeat the competitor. For many years, the heroes heralded this adventure as the event that prompted them to agree to pool resources when confronted with similar menaces.

Years later, however (as revealed in ''Justice League of America'' #144), Green Arrow uncovered inconsistencies in League records and extracted admissions from his colleagues that the seven founders had actually formed the League after the Martian Manhunter was rescued from Martian forces by the other six founders, along with several other heroes including Robin, Robotman, Congo Bill/Congorilla, Rex the Wonder Dog, and even Lois Lane. Green Lantern participated in this first adventure solely as Hal Jordan, due to the fact that he had yet to become the costumed hero at that time (the biggest inconsistency Arrow found, as they celebrated the earlier incident's date, while recounting only the later one's events). When the group formalized their agreement, they suppressed news of it because of anti-Martian hysteria (mirroring the real-world backdrop of Martian scares and anti-communist hysteria of the 1950s). Because the League members had not revealed their identities to each other at the time, they did not realize that Jordan and Green Lantern were one and the same when he turned up in costume during the event described in #9. While most subsequent accounts of the League have made little mention of this first adventure, the animated ''Justice League'' series adapted this tale as the origin of the League as well.

1989's ''Secret Origins'' #32 updated ''Justice League of America'' #9's origin for Post-Crisis continuity. Differences included the inclusion of the original Black Canary as a founding member and the absence of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman (the 1960s time frame was retained, but the post-Crisis versions of DC's three biggest stars were young and early in their careers in the late 1980s). Additionally, while Hal Jordan served as the public face of the Justice League, this iteration of the League's origin cast the Flash as the team's unofficial leader, since it was Allen who usually came up with the plans that best utilized everyone's powers. 1998's ''JLA: Year One'' limited series, by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson, further expanded upon the ''Secret Origins'' depiction, with the revelation that the group was secretly financed by Oliver Queen, a.k.a. the superhero Green Arrow. It also stated that Superman rejected membership into the group, leading to much animus between him and the other "founders" during the early years of the group.

In 1994's ''Justice League Task Force'' #16, during Zero Hour, an unknown superhuman named Triumph appeared. In a plotline never explored before, Triumph was revealed to have been a founding member of the Justice League and was their leader. On his first mission with the fledgling Justice League Triumph seemingly "saved the world" but was teleported into a dimensional limbo that also affected the timestream, resulting in no one having any memory of him. This explained how all the heroes ended up in Washington for their first meeting.

Further convolutions came with the issue of Batman's involvement with the League; during the 1990s, the editors of Batman sought to distance Batman from the Justice League, to the point of demanding that Batman's entire Justice League membership be removed from the group's canon. According to Christopher Priest, this "Batman was never in the Justice League" edict came down ironically after DC published ''Justice League America Annual'' #9, which featured Batman as a member of the League during its early days. The edict itself was largely haphazardly enforced; while Mark Waid had Batman proclaim to have never been a member of the League in ''Justice League Incarnations'' #7, other writers such as Grant Morrison and Keith Giffen took the stance that Batman had simply never joined the team until the Justice League International era. This edict was ultimately dropped by the early 2000s, as Batman's involvement with the League is now referenced heavily by later writers such as Brad Meltzer.

The convoluted change made to Hawkman's background in the wake of the launching of the Hawkworld ongoing series, in 1990, resulted in a retcon where the original Golden Age/Justice Society Golden Age Hawkman, Carter Hall was now a member of the team as opposed to Katar Hol (who would now not join the group until 1994's Justice League America #0). The details of how Carter Hall joined the team, would be revealed in the 2001 ''Justice League Incarnations'' #1, with the revelation that Carter joined the team to serve as a mentor for then-young heroes.

In 2006's ''Infinite Crisis'' #7, the formation of "New Earth" (the new name for the Post-Crisis Earth) resulted in the retcon that Wonder Woman was a founding member of the Justice League in the early days. In Brad Meltzer's ''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #0 (2006), it was also revealed that both Superman and Batman were founding members as well. ''52 - Week 51'' confirmed that the 1989 ''Secret Origins'' and ''JLA: Year One'' origins were still in canon at that time, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman joining the team (consisting of Aquaman, Black Canary, Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter) with founding members' status shortly after the group's formation. However, in various issues (particularly issue #12) of the 2006 ''Justice League of America'' series, the founding members of the Justice League are shown to be: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Flash (Barry Allen), Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter.

With much of DC's past history rebooted by the 2011 "Flashpoint" event, an entirely new origin for the League is introduced in the subsequent ''Justice League'' series which debuted in September 2011. Issue #1 portrays the first meeting between Batman and Hal Jordan, with the two encountering each other during a battle against a Parademon in Gotham City. After realizing the creature is extraterrestrial in origin, the two heroes head to Metropolis to seek out Superman (who is a known alien in the new continuity), and are attacked by him. Later, after a brief fight to which the Flash arrives and Batman convinces Superman they are on the same side, they move to an abandoned newspress building to work on analyzing the mysterious alien box, when it suddenly activates and more Parademons arrive.While fighting them off, the heroes notice them capture people for something. During this they meet two more heroes Aquaman and Wonder Woman who join them.

Related series

''Formerly Known as the Justice League''

In 2003, Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire returned with a separate limited series called ''Formerly Known as the Justice League'' with the same humor as their Justice League run, and featuring some of the same characters in a team called the "Super Buddies" (a parody of the ''Super Friends''). A follow-up limited series, entitled ''I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League'', soon was prepared, although it was delayed due to the events shown in the ''Identity Crisis'' limited series, but was eventually released as the second arc in ''JLA: Classified''. The Super Buddies consisted of Blue Beetle; Booster Gold; Captain Atom, Fire; Mary Marvel; the Elongated Man with his wife, Sue Dibny; Maxwell Lord; and L-Ron. The second story arc of ''JLA: Classified'' focuses on the Super Buddies in a humorous story that features Power Girl, Guy Gardner, and Doctor Fate.

''JLA/Avengers''

In 2003-2004, George Pérez and Kurt Busiek produced a ''JLA/Avengers'' crossover, an idea that had been delayed for 20 years for various reasons. In this limited series, the Justice League and the Avengers were forced to find key artifacts in one another's universe, as well as deal with the threats of villains Krona and the Grandmaster. A key moment in League history occurs in this series, when the Avenger Hawkeye becomes the first Marvel Comics character to be inducted into the Justice League.

''JLA: Classified''

title	JLA: Classified
schedule	Monthly
format	Ended
publisher	DC Comics
date	January 2005 - May 2008
issues	54
writers	various
artists	various
creators	Grant MorrisonEd McGuinness }}

In 2004, DC began an anthology series titled ''JLA: Classified'', which would feature rotating writers and artists producing self-contained story-arcs and aborted mini-series projects that were reappropriated for publication within the pages of the series, starring the JLA. While the bulk of the stories took place within the continuity of the series (circa ''JLA'' #76–113) some of the stories take place outside of regular DC Universe canon. The series was canceled as of issue #54 (May 2008).

''Justice''

In October 2005, DC began publishing the 12-issue miniseries ''Justice'' by writer Jim Krueger, writer/illustrator Alex Ross, and artist Doug Braithwaite. The story, which takes place outside regular DC continuity, has Lex Luthor assembling the Legion of Doom after he and several other villains begin to have nightmares about the end of the world and the failures of the Justice League to prevent said apocalypse. As the Legion begins engaging in unprecedented humanitarian deeds throughout the world, they also launch a series of attacks on the Justice League and their families. In the end however, the threat that the Legion was warned about destroying the Earth turns out to be caused by Brainiac, who seeks to destroy Earth during the chaos.

''Justice League: Cry for Justice''

Originally a planned ongoing title, ''Justice League: Cry For Justice'' is a mini-series written by James Robinson and drawn by Mauro Cascioli. The mini-series, set after the events of ''Final Crisis'', has Hal Jordan leaving the League following the deaths of Batman and Martian Manhunter, as their deaths have caused Hal to seek out a more proactive manner of dealing with super-villains. Hal, along with Green Arrow and later Supergirl, Captain Marvel Jr., and Batwoman are then recruited by Ray Palmer to investigate a murder of a former colleague carried out on orders from Prometheus. This ties into another string of murders, bringing Starman Mikaal Tomas and Congorilla together as their investigation of the murders of several European super-heroes are also revealed to be the work of Prometheus.

With help from the Hawkman villain I.Q., Prometheus plans on creating the ultimate weapon in mass murder, a massive doomsday device which he plans on using to destroy entire cities, as part of his revenge scheme against the JLA for lobotomizing him. Disguised as Captain Marvel Jr., Prometheus maims Roy Harper and brutally injuring JLA members Dr. Light II, Vixen, and Plastic Man while using the JLA Satellite to activate his doomsday device, which destroys Star City, killing 90,000 innocent civilians, including Roy Harper's young daughter Lian. Prometheus ultimately extorts his freedom from the League in exchange for the codes to shut down his weapon, much to the horror of the JLA members. However, afterwards, Green Arrow (with help from reformed villain the Shade), tracks Prometheus down and kills him by firing an arrow into his head.

The mini-series leads directly into the formation of a brand new JLA roster with Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Donna Troy, Dick Grayson as Batman, Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi), Mon-El, Cyborg, Starfire, Congorilla, Guardian, and Mikaal Tomas.

''JLA/The 99''

Launching in October 2010, ''JLA/The 99'' was a crossover mini-series featuring the Justice League teaming up with the heroes of Teshkeel Comics' ''The 99'' series. The JLA consisted of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (John Stewart), the Flash (Barry Allen), the Atom (Ray Palmer), Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi), Hawkman, and Firestorm (Jason Rusch).

Awards

The original ''Justice League of America'' series has won:

1961 Alley Awards for ''Best Comic Book''

1961 Alley Awards for ''Best Adventure-Hero Group''

1963 Alley Awards for ''Favorite Novel'' ("Crisis on Earth-One/Crisis on Earth-Two" in ''Justice League of America'' #21-22 by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky)

1963 Alley Awards for ''Strip that Should Be Improved''

1963 Alley Awards for ''Artist Preferred on Justice League of America'' (Murphy Anderson)

1973 Shazam Awards for ''Best Inker (Dramatic Division)'' (Dick Giordano)

Collected editions

Silver Age ''Justice League of America''

This series has been collected in the following: {|class="wikitable" |- ! # !! Title !! Material collected |- |1 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 1 |''The Brave and the Bold'' #28-30, ''Justice League of America'' #1-6 |- |2 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 2 |''Justice League of America'' #7-14 |- |3 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 3 |''Justice League of America'' #15-22 |- |4 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 4 |''Justice League of America'' #23-30 |- |5 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 5 |''Justice League of America'' #31-38, #40* |- |6 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 6 |''Justice League of America'' #41-47, #49-50* |- |7 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 7 |''Justice League of America'' #51-57, #59-60* |- |8 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 8 |''Justice League of America'' #61-66, #68-70* |- |9 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 9 |''Justice League of America'' #71-80 |- |10 |''Justice League of America Archives'' volume 10 |''Justice League of America'' #81-93 |}

omitted issues featured reprints of material from earlier Archives.

''Justice League/Justice League International/Justice League America'' (1987–1996)

This series has been collected in the following hardcover collections:

! # !! Title !! Material collected
1	''Justice League International'' Volume 1	''Justice League'' #1-6, ''Justice League International'' (vol. 1) #7
2	''Justice League International'' Volume 2	''Justice League International'' (vol. 1) #8-14, ''Justice League'' Annual #1
3	''Justice League International'' Volume 3	''Justice League International'' (vol. 1) #15-22
4	''Justice League International'' Volume 4	''Justice League International'' (vol. 1) #23-25, ''Justice League America'' #26-30
5	''Justice League International'' Volume 5	''Justice League International Annual'' #2-3, ''Justice League Europe'' #1-6
6	''Justice League International'' Volume 6	''Justice League America'' #31-35, ''Justice League Europe'' #7-11

''JLA'' (January 1997 – February 2006)

This series has been collected in the following trade paperbacks:

! # !! Title !! Material collected
''1''	''New World Order''	''JLA'' #1-4
''2''	''American Dreams''	''JLA'' #5-9
''3''	''Rock of Ages''	''JLA'' #10-15
''4''	''Strength in Numbers''	''JLA'' #16-23, ''JLA Secret Files'' #2, ''Prometheus'' (one-shot)
''5''	''Justice For All''	''JLA'' #24-33
''6''		''JLA'' #34-41
''7''		''JLA'' #42-46, ''JLA Secret Files'' #3, ''JLA 80-Page Giant'' #1
''8''	''Divided We Fall''	''JLA'' #47-54
''9''	''Terror Incognita''	''JLA'' #55-60
''10''	''Golden Perfect''	''JLA'' #61-65
''11''	''The Obsidian Age'' (Book 1)	''JLA'' #66-71
''12''	''The Obsidian Age'' (Book 2)	''JLA'' #72-76
''13''	''Rules of Engagement''	''JLA'' #77-82
''14''	''Trial By Fire''	''JLA'' #84-89
''15''	''The Tenth Circle''	''JLA'' #94-99
''16''		''JLA'' #101-106
''17''	''Syndicate Rules''	''JLA'' #107-114, and a story from ''JLA Secret Files'' 2004
''18''	''Crisis of Conscience''	''JLA'' #115-119
''19''	''World Without a Justice League''	''JLA'' #120-125

This series has been collected in the following hardcover collections:

! # !! Title !! Material collected
''1''	''JLA: The Deluxe Edition'' Vol. 1	''JLA'' #1-9, plus a story included in ''JLA: Secret Files and Origins'' #1
''2''	''JLA: The Deluxe Edition'' Vol. 2	''JLA'' #10-17, ''Prometheus'' (one-shot), plus ''JLA/WILDCATS''
''3''	''JLA: The Deluxe Edition'' Vol. 3	''JLA'' #22-26, 28-31 and 1,000,000''
''4''	''JLA: The Deluxe Edition'' Vol. 4	''JLA'' #34, 36-41, ''JLA: Classified'' #1-3, ''JLA: Earth II''

''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) (August 2006 – August 2011)

This series has been collected in the following hardcover collections:

! # !! Title !! Material collected
''1''	''The Tornado's Path''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #1-7
''2''	''The Lightning Saga''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #0, #8-12; ''Justice Society of America'' (vol. 3) #5-6
''3''	''The Injustice League''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #13-16; ''JLA Wedding Special'' #1
''4''	''Sanctuary''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #17-21
''5''	''The Second Coming''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #22-26
''6''	''When Worlds Collide''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #27-28, #30-34
''7''	''Team History''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #38-43
''8''	''The Dark Things''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #44-48; ''Justice Society of America'' (vol. 3) #41-42
''9''	''Omega''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #49-53
'' 10	''The Rise of Eclipso''	''Justice League of America'' (vol. 2) #54-60

Miscellaneous reprints

These trades don't reprint the series in a coherent fashion, but reprint themed issues. {|class="wikitable" |- ! # !! Title !! Material collected |- |1 |''Justice League of America Hereby Elects'' |''Justice League of America'' #4, 75, 105-106, 146, 161, and 173-174 |- |2 |''JLA: The Greatest Stories Ever Told'' |''Justice League of America'' #19, 77, 122 and 166-168, Justice League #1, JLA Secret Files #1 and JLA #61 |- |3 |''Crisis on Multiple Earths'' volume 1 |''Justice League of America'' ##21-22, 29-30, 37-38 and 46-47 |- |4 |''Crisis on Multiple Earths'' volume 2 |''Justice League of America'' #55-56, 64-65, 73-74 and 82-83 |- |5 |''Crisis on Multiple Earths'' volume 3 |''Justice League of America'' #91-92, 100-102, 107-108 and 113 |- |6 |''Crisis on Multiple Earths'' volume 4 |''Justice League of America'' #123-124, 135-137 and 147-148 |- |7 |''Crisis on Multiple Earths'' volume 5 |''Justice League of America'' #159-160, 171-172 and 183-185 |}

In other media

See also

Justice Society of America

Spin-off groups

Extreme Justice

Justice Leagues

Justice League Antarctica

Justice League Elite

Justice League Europe

Justice League International

Justice League Task Force

Super Buddies

References

External links

Justice League of America at DC Comics.com

The Origin Story of the Justice League of America at DC Comics.com

Justice League of America at Toonopedia

''Justice League Unlimited'' at Cartoon Network "A Monumental Move" (April 5, 2007) WizardUniverse.com - Writer Brad Meltzer discusses the origins and implications of the JLA's new HQ

The Justice League Library

"Super-Exiles of Earth" (''JLA'' #19, May 1963)

Category:1960 introductions Category:1960 comic debuts Category:1997 comic debuts Category:2006 comic debuts Category:DC Comics titles Category:Justice League Category:Characters created by Gardner Fox

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