The Tragedy

The World's Most Despair Inducing Incident is a major event in the Dangan Ronpa (series), and happens before and still currently is around the Dangan Ronpa timeline.

The beginning is described as a form of social unrest which culminated in total war between the participants.

Pre-Incident
Facing financial shortcomings, Hope's Peak Academy decided to allow students, without excellent abillities to attend school, for an immensely high fee, in the hopes of continuing its search for the best talents.

These untalented students (by Hope's Peak Academy standards) were shuffled to the "reserve course" and, though having paid immense sums of money and fought through hotly-contested examinations, were eventually treated as "second class" students by the main faculty and main course students.

Hajime Hinata, in an attempt to become part of the main course he long admired, applied for an experiment for artificial augmentation, renaming himself Izuru Kamukura and gaining the Title of Super High-School Level Hope in the process, though his existence was kept a secret from even the main course students.

World's Most Despair-Inducing Incident
Junko Enoshima, in her desire to spread despair, forced the Student Council of Hope's Peak into the first known mutual-killing game, killing all but Izuru Kamukura and the heavily wounded student council president Soushun Murasame. This was broadcast to the reserve course, resulting in unrest for spending most of the schools funds in "creating" murderers.

The reserve course then rebelled and protested, being led and agitated from the shadows by Enoshima and her organisation, Super High-School Level Despair. The social unrest soon became a movement, turning more and more violent until violence and death became a normal part of society.

Hope's Peak Academy then decided that in light of the drastic development, they had no choice but to cease operations as an educational facility, effectively transforming the school into a shelter for the remaining students. Unfortunately for Hope's Peak Academy, this plan was doomed to fail, leading directly to the events of the first game.

Junko Enoshima hijacked the plan from the inside of this locked-down facility by killing headmaster Jin Kirigiri, and erasing the memories of the other survivors except that of her fellow conspirator/twin sister, Mukuro Ikusaba.

In-Game Description
The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all of Hope's Peak Academy ’s history” was only the beginning to what would be the word's end. The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all of Hope's Peak Academy’s history ( the cover-up of ASDS caused the reserve course students to rebel…

At first, it was optimistically thought that everything would calm down soon, but the situation worsened and quickened its pace. The movement happened on the Internet, and formed a community of its own.

Soon, not just students were involved, but came to include people of various races and nationalities in its development and spread off the internet and into real life.

At the beginning of the movement, it involved demonstrations regarding social issues, but as it spread through the world, its abnormality began to show. At some point in time, the motives and modus operandi changed, and left behind only meaningless destruction and violence.

Strong people killed weak people…

Weak people murdered even weaker people…

Weak people formed factions and lynched strong people

As the violence and death spread, people became desensitized. As if time had gone backwards, people took death to become a certainty. The media reports overflowed with death, and people ate as they watched. By the time the world had noticed the abnormality, it was already too late.

The overpowering “despair” became a huge wave that swallowed up the world in the blink of one’s eye…

Soon, terrorists and coup d’etats sprang up and caused the despair that is war. It wasn’t war that happened due to the clash of ideals, religion or profits…It was just war.

Pure war.

Therefore, no way to solve the problem was found. However…how did what was originally a students’ movement develop into such a despair-worthy situation? This was because of…the existence of “a certain group of people”.

It revolved around the “certain student” who led Hope's Peak Academy to its destruction; a group called “Super High School Level Despair”.

Their talents, recognized by Hope's Peak Academy, were used not “for the sake of causing hope for humanity”…They used their talents “for the sake of causing despair for humanity”. Those who held great power brainwashed ordinary citizens to spread despair…

Those who had talent with computers created software to spread despair…

Those who had great influence over people created new ideals to spread despair.

This is how “the biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history” was produced. Indeed, as long as “Super High School Level Despair” exists, this despair will not end…

“The biggest and most despair inducing incident in all human history” will not end…

Aftermath/Current Status
An organization; Future Foundation hopes to fix this event and tests it out with normal high school students, which are the Super Dangan Ronpa 2: Farewell Despair Academy cast.

They also saved the remaining survivors in Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair. Makoto Naegi, Kyouko Kirigiri and Byakuya Togami would later join this foundation and make their appearance in Super Dangan Ronpa 2.