The Organization of American States, or the OAS or OEA, is a continental organization, founded on 30 April 1948, for the purposes of solidarity and cooperation among its member states within the Western Hemisphere. During the Cold War, the United States hoped the OAS would be a bulwark against the spread of communism. Since the 1990s, the organization has focused on election monitoring. Headquartered in the United States' capital Washington, D. C. the OAS's members are the 35 independent states of the Americas. As of 26 May 2015, the Secretary General of OAS is Luis Almagro; the notion of an international union in the New World was first put forward during the liberation of the Americas by José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar who, at the 1826 Congress of Panama, proposed creating a league of American republics, with a common military, a mutual defense pact, a supranational parliamentary assembly. This meeting was attended by representatives of Gran Colombia, Peru, The United Provinces of Central America, Mexico but the grandly titled "Treaty of Union and Perpetual Confederation" was ratified only by Gran Colombia.

Bolívar's dream soon floundered with civil war in Gran Colombia, the disintegration of Central America, the emergence of national rather than New World outlooks in the newly independent American republics. Bolívar's dream of American unity was meant to unify Hispanic American nations against external powers; the pursuit of regional solidarity and cooperation again came to the forefront in 1889–1890, at the First International Conference of American States. Gathered together in Washington, D. C. 18 nations resolved to found the International Union of American Republics, served by a permanent secretariat called the Commercial Bureau of the American Republics. These two bodies, in existence as of 14 April 1890, represent the point of inception to which the OAS and its General Secretariat trace their origins. At the Fourth International Conference of American States, the name of the organization was changed to the Union of American Republics and the Bureau became the Pan American Union; the Pan American Union Building was constructed in 1910, on Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.

C. In the mid-1930s, U. S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt organized an inter-American conference in Buenos Aires. One of the items at the conference was a "League of Nations of the Americas", an idea proposed by Colombia and the Dominican Republic. At the subsequent Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, 21 nations pledged to remain neutral in the event of a conflict between any two members; the experience of World War II convinced hemispheric governments that unilateral action could not ensure the territorial integrity of the American nations in the event of external aggression. To meet the challenges of global conflict in the postwar world and to contain conflicts within the hemisphere, they adopted a system of collective security, the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance signed in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro; the Ninth International Conference of American States was held in Bogotá between March and May 1948 and led by United States Secretary of State George Marshall, a meeting which led to a pledge by members to fight communism in the western hemisphere.

This was the event that saw the birth of the OAS as it stands today, with the signature by 21 American countries of the Charter of the Organization of American States on 30 April 1948. The meeting adopted the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the world's first general human rights instrument; the transition from the Pan American Union to OAS would have been smooth if it had not been for the assassination of Colombian leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. The Director General of the former, Alberto Lleras Camargo, became the Organization's first Secretary General; the current Secretary General is former Uruguayan minister of foreign affairs Luis Almagro. Significant milestones in the history of the OAS since the signing of the Charter have included the following: 1959: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights created. 1959: Inter-American Development Bank created. 1960: First application of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance against the regime of Rafael Trujillo in Dominican Republic 1961: Charter of Punta del Este signed, launching the Alliance for Progress.

1962: OAS suspends Cuba. 1969: American Convention on Human Rights signed. 1970: OAS General Assembly established as the Organization's supreme decision-making body. 1979: Inter-American Court of Human Rights created. 1991: Adoption of Resolution 1080, which requires the Secretary General to convene the Permanent Council within ten days of a coup d'état in any member country. 1994: First Summit of the Americas, which resolved to establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005. 2001: Inter-American Democratic Charter adopted. 2009: OAS revokes 1962 suspension of Cuba. 2009: OAS suspends Honduras due to the coup which ousted president Manuel Zelaya. 2011: OAS lifts the suspension of Honduras with the return of Manuel Zelaya from exile. 2017: Venezuela announces it will begin the process to leave the OAS in response to what it alleged was OAS interference in Venezuela's political crisis. In the words of Article 1 of the Charter, the goal of the member nations in creating the OAS was "to achieve an order of peace and jus

Ebenezer Snapper Ingram was a Los Angeles City Council member representing the 10th District from 1927 until 1935. He was known as E. Snapper Ingram. Ingram was born on December 8, 1884, to Samuel S. Ingram and Elizabeth E. James in Johnstown and came to Los Angeles in 1910, he had Russell Uhl Ingram. Ingram began his working career in 1910 in the office of the Los Angeles city engineer, he served in World War I as a member of Battery B, Second Anti-Aircraft Battalion, attached to the First Army Artillery Headquarters. On reentering civilian life he became active in the local chapter of 40 & 8, La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux, which in 1929 was described as "the fun-making organization of the American Legion." In October of that year at the convention in Louisville, Kentucky, he was elected Chef de Chemin de Fer, the president of the national organization. He was a Mason and an American Legion member. Ingram was a member of so many social organizations — 28 altogether — that he had a special pocketbook made to carry all his membership cards, a feature story in the Los Angeles Times reported in 1928.

Ingram took the name Snapper as his own. He explained in 1927: I was interested in athletics and became a member of the Shrine patrol drill team. Being the shortest man in the contingent, I was given the end position and among our maneuvers was a "crack-the whip" movement. Being on the end of the rank, I was on the "snapper" end of the whip and because of the many tumbles I incurred from the "cracking of the whip" I was called "Snapper." He died on April 1966, after a fall in his home at 407 South Fuller Avenue. He was survived by his wife, whom he had married in 1930. See List of Los Angeles municipal election returns, 1927, 1929, 1931 and 1945, he ran for election to the City Council for a two-year term in 1927 against the incumbent, Otto J. Zahn, he said his campaign plans were delayed for a week because he wanted to use the name "Snapper" on the ballots, but the City Clerk hesitated to do so. The City Attorney, ruled that a candidate could use the name by which he was best known. Ingram was re-elected in the primary voting in 1929.

In the next election, 1931, he bested George Underwood by a vote of 5,807 to 4,891. At that time the 10th District was bounded by West Pico and Ninth Street on the north, Jefferson Boulevard on the south, Vermont Avenue on the west and Hooper Avenue or Central Avenue on the east. In 1945, Ingram, "whose desire to be helpful has made him many friends," was a City Council candidate in the Fourth District, coming in fourth in a field of eight candidates and losing to Harold A. Henry. Recall threatened. In January 1930, Ingram and seven other council members who had voted in favor of granting a rock-crushing permit in the Santa Monica Mountains were unsuccessfully targeted for recall on the grounds that the eight have conspired with... Alphonzo Bell, Samuel Traylor and Chapin A. Day, all multi-millionaires, to grant this group a special spot zoning permit to crush and ship... from the high-class residential section of Santa Monica and rock for cement. Racial restrictions. Ingram was one of the eight council members who in July 1931 voted against appealing a judge's decision ordering an end to racial restrictions in city-operated swimming pools, thus ending the practice.

Six council members wanted to continue the legal fight. The pools had been restricted by race to certain days or hours. Access to the Los Angeles Times links requires the use of a library card

Leopold Eric Kyanda is a Major General in the Uganda People's Defence Force. He serves as the Chief of Staff of the Land Forces in the UPDF, he was appointed to that position in May 2013, replacing Major General Charles Angina, promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Deputy Chief of Defence Forces of Uganda. Ugandan press reports indicate that in 1994, Leo Kyanda was a driver to General Ivan Koreta, at that time, a Brigadier, he joined the Presidential Guard Brigade, which today is part of the Special Forces Group. He rose in its ranks and became the Commander of the PGB. Following that, he became the Commandant of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence. From there, he was assigned to the Ugandan Embassy in Washington, DC, as the Military Attaché, serving in that capacity for two years. On his return to Uganda, he was appointed Chief of Personnel and Administration in the UPDF. From there, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier and assigned his current post of Chief of Staff of Land Forces of Uganda.

In December 2017, Kyanda completed a military course from the National Defence College in India. In February 2019 he was promoted from the rank of Brigadier to that of Major General, as a part of a promotions exercise involving over 2,000 men and women of the UPDF. Ivan Koreta Muhoozi Kainerugaba Wilson Mbadi Hudson Mukasa Colonel Leopold Eric Kyanda Named Professional of the Year In Government Service Media Must Stop Witch-Hunting Colonel Kyanda – By Major Paddy Ankunda.