The killings occurred during World War One, when Turkey was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey was once the center of the Ottoman Empire. An empire is when a group of territories are ruled by one power. At its largest point, in the 1600s, this Islamic empire included parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. This empire ruled many people and ethnic groups, including Armenians and Greeks. But non-Muslims were not always treated well and they often suffered from hunger and violence. Armenian groups tried to rebel against the government, but this led to government crackdowns in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed.

When World War One started, the Ottoman Empire entered on the side of Germany. Government leaders like Ismail Enver, shown here, accused Armenians of rebelling and siding with enemy nations. Many people were shot in the streets. Soldiers drove Armenian families from their homes and marched them to camps where they had no food and no medical attention. Nations around the world tried to help -- the poster at right shows that Americans tried to raise money to stop the killing. But it was not enough. More than 1 million Armenians died by the end of the war. Many experts agree that this was genocide. But the Turkish government says that the Ottomans did not mean to wipe out the Armenian people -- and many Turks agree. Also, the Turks say that when the killing occurred, Turkey was under an entirely different government.