The UN General Assembly voted to establish the International Day of Peace, initially observed on the opening day of the General Assembly's regular session each September. In 2001, the date was fixed permanently as September 21 every year, marked worldwide by a symbolic 'Peace Bell' ceremony at UN Headquarters and calls for a global ceasefire.
The idea originated from a British motion and gathered momentum through the early 1980s as Cold War tensions remained high and the UN sought a unifying, symbolic gesture that member states across ideological lines could embrace. The Peace Bell itself, cast from coins and medals donated by children from all continents except Africa, had been a gift from the Japanese UN Association back in 1954, and it became the day's central ritual object.
When the General Assembly fixed the observance permanently on September 21 in 2001, it also called for a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an aspiration honored more often in rhetoric than in practice given the wars raging that year and in years since. Still, various NGOs and even some combatant governments have periodically used the date to arrange temporary humanitarian pauses.
September 21 has since become an occasion for concerts, marches, and educational campaigns worldwide, from Times Square vigils to school programs in dozens of countries, even as the day's aspirational ceasefire remains, in most years, more symbol than reality.