On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Adana massacres in 1909, the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute will organize an international conference that will take place in Yerevan on April 20-21. Experts from Armenia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, France, the United States and Sweden will gather to present papers and other materials that will primarily focus on the underlying causes and consequences of the massacres that took place in Adana and other districts on the Ottoman Empire following the 1908 Young Turk reform movement.In 1908, the Young Turkish revolution brought some hope for change for the Empire’s Christian minorities. However, the initial euphoria and hopes for equal rights for Muslims and Christians were dashed in the brutal slaughtering of Armenian population in Cilicia and its center Adana. This massacre revived the fears of Christian minorities, particularly of Armenians, towards the traditional Ottoman policy against them. The Adana massacres of April 1909 became a symbolic prelude for the state orchestrated and executed policy of genocide against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. Ethnical cleansings and large-scale massacres were carried out even earlier; during the Hamidian massacres in 1894-1896  when some 300,000 Armenians were annihilated and evicted. The study of Adana massacre reveals several important issues, particularly in terms of crime investigation, reparation and involvement of Turkish regular army in the massacre. These tragic events resonated with the events of the earlier attacks on the Armenians and brought back the feeling of the coming catastrophe. The Adana massacres heralded a large-scale extermination policy, which was implemented shortly after the breakout of the WWI. This resulted in the genocide of Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during 1915-1922, and expulsion of several hundred thousand people from their homeland.