 Complete the following phrase:  During WWI the Ottoman Empire engaged in a genocide against local ethnicities in its territory. The Armenian genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust, was the Ottoman governments systematic extermination of 1.5 million Christian Armenians, mostly Ottoman citizens within the Ottoman Empire and its successor state, the Republic of Turkey. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported 