Founding of the United Nations

Date

26 June 1945 (in force 24 October 1945)

Category

Politics & governance

Region

Global

Era

Modern

Significance

At the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco (25 April – 26 June 1945), delegates of fifty nations drafted and signed the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945.

The Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945 after ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories, establishing the United Nations as successor to the discredited League of Nations. The organisation created a General Assembly, a Security Council with five veto-wielding permanent members (the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China), and bodies for economic, social and judicial cooperation. Conceived to maintain international peace and security and prevent another world war, the UN became the central institution of the postwar international order and a forum for decolonisation, peacekeeping and global diplomacy.

Empires active in 26 June 1945 (in force 24 October 1945)

• Soviet Union
  1922 CE – 1991 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE – 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE – 1962 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The Munich Agreement Cedes the Sudetenland
  1938
• Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror)
  1936–1938
• Hitler's appointment and Nazi consolidation of power
  30 January 1933 – August 1934
• Treaty of Versailles and the founding of the League of Nations
  28 June 1919 (in force 10 January 1920)
• Russian Revolutions of 1917
  March & November 1917 (February & October Revolutions, O.S.)
• Sykes-Picot Agreement partitions the Ottoman Middle East
  16 May 1916

Also relevant

• Proclamation of Indonesian Independence
  1945
• Vietnamese Declaration of Independence
  1945

Further reading

The Penguin History of the World

The wider story

The Penguin History of the World

J. M. Roberts

The definitive one-volume world history — every era and continent in a single narrative.

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