On a June afternoon in 1945, in a theatre building in San Francisco, delegates queued to sign a document that most of them could not yet bring into force. Their signatures were only a promise. The United Nations did not legally exist until four months later, on 24 October 1945, which is why the world marks UN Day today, 81 years on, and why the story of how a wartime alliance became a permanent organisation still shapes diplomacy from New York to Riyadh.
- Era
- End of the Second World War
- Date
- Charter signed 26 June 1945; in force 24 October 1945
- Place
- San Francisco, United States; first General Assembly in London
- Key figures
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin; delegations of 50 nations, including Saudi Arabia led by Amir Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz
Key points
- The UN Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by 50 countries at the San Francisco Conference; Poland signed on 15 October 1945 and became the 51st original member.
- The Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945, once China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and a majority of other signatories had ratified it.
- Saudi Arabia was among the founding signatories; its delegation was led by Amir Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz, the future King Faisal.
- The General Assembly first met on 10 January 1946 in London; UN Day was established by Assembly resolution 168 (II) in 1947.
- The UN now has 193 member states, each with one vote in the General Assembly.
The story: an idea born in wartime
The name came before the organisation. On 1 January 1942, less than a month after Pearl Harbor, 26 governments at war with the Axis powers signed the Declaration by United Nations in Washington, pledging their full resources to the war and promising not to make a separate peace. The phrase "United Nations" described an alliance, not an institution. Its roots went back further still, to the Atlantic Charter that Roosevelt and Churchill agreed at sea in August 1941, which sketched principles for a post-war world.
Turning an alliance into a permanent body took three years of careful bargaining. At Moscow and Tehran in late 1943, the major Allies agreed in principle that a general international organisation was needed. The detailed blueprint was drawn up between 21 August and 7 October 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks, a historic estate in Washington, where American and British officials met first with Soviet and then with Chinese delegations. They proposed a General Assembly of all members and a smaller Security Council with permanent seats for the great powers. The hardest question, how voting in that council would work, was left open until Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin settled it at Yalta in February 1945. The result was the veto power that still defines the Security Council.
The Saudi connection is part of this early story. Saudi Arabia was one of the states that adhered to the Declaration by United Nations during the war, which qualified it for an invitation to San Francisco. That made the Kingdom, barely 13 years after its unification in 1932, one of the founding members of the new world body.
Timeline
- 1919The League of Nations is created under the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War.
- Aug 1941Roosevelt and Churchill issue the Atlantic Charter.
- 1 Jan 194226 nations sign the Declaration by United Nations in Washington.
- Aug–Oct 1944Dumbarton Oaks talks draft the outline of the new organisation.
- Feb 1945The Yalta Conference agrees Security Council voting arrangements.
- 25 Apr–26 Jun 1945The San Francisco Conference; the Charter is signed by 50 nations on 26 June.
- 24 Oct 1945The Charter enters into force and the UN officially exists.
- 10 Jan 1946First General Assembly meets at Methodist Central Hall, London, with 51 nations.
- 20 Apr 1946The League of Nations ceases to exist, handing its assets and archives to the UN.
- 31 Oct 1947The General Assembly designates 24 October as United Nations Day.
"to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war"Preamble, Charter of the United Nations, San Francisco, 1945, via United Nations
The turning point: two months in San Francisco
The United Nations Conference on International Organization opened on 25 April 1945, while fighting was still raging in Europe and the Pacific. According to the UN's own history, 850 delegates attended; with advisers, staff and the secretariat the total reached about 3,500, and more than 2,500 journalists and observers came to cover it. Working from the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, the Yalta agreement and amendments tabled by smaller countries, committees debated every chapter, from the powers of the Assembly to the new International Court of Justice.
The smaller and middle-sized states pushed hard to widen the text. Many of their amendments, on issues such as economic and social co-operation and the future of colonial territories, found their way into the final text, but the great-power veto agreed at Yalta survived. Delegates finished in exactly two months. On 26 June 1945 the Charter was signed in the Veterans' War Memorial Building. Among the signatures that day was that of Amir Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz, then Viceroy of the Hejaz and foreign minister, who led the Saudi delegation and would later reign as King Faisal.
One seat was empty. Poland had been among the wartime signatories but its new government was not recognised in time to send a delegation, so a space was left for its signature. Poland signed on 15 October 1945, becoming one of the 51 original members. Nine days later, after the five permanent members and a majority of signatories had deposited their ratifications under Article 110 of the Charter, the United Nations formally came into being. Global health co-operation, one of the areas the new system was built to manage, remains central today, as our coverage of the 2026 Ebola outbreak shows.
Myth and fact
Legacy: why it matters today
From 51 founding states the organisation has grown to 193 members, each with one vote in the General Assembly. The first session in London in January 1946 elected Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak as Assembly president, and Trygve Lie of Norway became the first Secretary-General. In 1947 the Assembly declared that 24 October should be used to explain the UN's aims and work, and in 1971 it recommended that member states mark the day as a public holiday.
For Saudi readers, the anniversary is also a reminder that the Kingdom's place in multilateral diplomacy is as old as the system itself, beginning with Amir Faisal's signature in 1945. The date sits in a different place on the Hijri calendar each year; you can check how 24 October 1945 falls in the Islamic calendar with our Hijri–Gregorian date converter. Debates about the Security Council veto, agreed at Yalta, continue today, which shows how much of the 1945 settlement still shapes the institution.
Sources and further reading
- United Nations: The San Francisco Conference
- United Nations: Preparatory Years, UN Charter History
- United Nations: Predecessor, the League of Nations
- United Nations: United Nations Day, 24 October
- UN Yearbook: Happy United Nations Day (resolutions 168 (II) and 2782 (XXVI))
- UN Photo archive: First Session of the General Assembly
- UN Photo archive: Saudi Arabia signs the United Nations Charter, 26 June 1945
- US Department of State, Office of the Historian: The United Nations, 1945
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