October 24, 1945 - United Nations Founded - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

United Nations founded. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the term “United Nations” in reference to the Allies fighting Germany, Italy and Japan. After the term’s first formal use in 1942, the Allies referred to themselves as the “United Nations Fighting Forces.” Hence the United Nations was founded in the wake of the second world war’s destruction in the hope that a world body assigned to deal with conflict might lower the chance of future world wars. In late 1943 and through the summer of 1944, representatives of the Soviet Union, United States, Britain and China met to discuss creating the United Nations. On March 5, 1945, the governments of these four countries sent invitations to 42 other countries to join in a conference in San Francisco that would begin the legwork of the United Nations charter. Two criteria determined who could attend this influential meeting: First, the countries had to have signed the Declaration by United Nations on January 1, 1942. Second, they had to have declared war on Germany or Japan no later than March 1, 1945. Countries like Paraguay, Peru, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt declared war in February 1945, and Iran and Finland backdated their declarations to meet the deadline. By the time Argentina, Denmark, Belarus and Ukraine had also qualified, a total of 50 countries actively partook in the conference. The UN Charter was signed on June 26th and came into existence October 24, 1945. The UN’s goal was to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war – to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights – to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms.” Today more than 190 nations make up the United Nations.

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