The Dark Days

The districts' failed rebellion that the Hunger Games were created to punish

The Dark Days is the name Panem gives to the districts' failed uprising against the Capitol, fought about 74 years before the events of The Hunger Games. The rebellion was armed and led by District 13, lasted around three years and ended in a Capitol victory: the twelve other districts were brought back under its rule, District 13 was declared destroyed, and the Treaty of Treason created the Hunger Games as the annual punishment. Mockingjay reveals that the Capitol lied, and that District 13 survived underground after the war.