[2] On 24 April 1965, for the first time for any such demonstration in the entire Soviet Union,[3] 100,000[4][5] protesters held a 24-hour demonstration in front of the Opera House on the 50th anniversary of the commencement of the Armenian genocide, and demanded that the Soviet Union government officially recognize the Armenian genocide committed by the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire, and build a memorial in Armenia's capital city of Yerevan to perpetuate the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide.

The posters said "Just solution to the Armenian question" and other nationalistic slogans concerning Western Armenia, Karabakh and Nakhichevan.

Taking into account the demonstrators' demands, the Kremlin commissioned a memorial for the genocide and the 1.5 million Armenians who perished.

The building of this memorial to the fallen of the genocide was the first step in honoring important events and figures in Armenia's long history.

Monuments honoring the Armenian victories in Sardarapat and Bash Abaran against the Ottoman Turks in 1918, among others, were later built one after the other.