Newly independent nations met to refuse a side in the Cold War

In 1955, delegates from 29 African and Asian nations, many only recently free of colonial rule, gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, to promote economic cooperation and oppose both colonialism and pressure to align with the US or USSR. The conference laid the groundwork for the Non-Aligned Movement, formally founded six years later.

— delegates convened by Sukarno, Nehru, and others, Asian-African Conference — Bandung, Indonesia, 18-24 April 1955