Posted on 06/26/2005 4:18:25 PM PDT by kellynla
In the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946.
Despite the failure of the League of Nations in arbitrating the conflicts that led up to World War II, the Allies as early as 1941 proposed establishing a new international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. The idea of the United Nations began to be articulated in August 1941, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which proposed a set of principles for international collaboration in maintaining peace and security. Later that year, Roosevelt coined "United Nations" to describe the nations allied against the Axis powers--Germany, Italy, and Japan. The term was first officially used on January 1, 1942, when representatives of 26 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and signed the Declaration by the United Nations, which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and presented the united war aims of the Allies.
In October 1943, the major Allied powers--Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China--met in Moscow and issued the Moscow Declaration, which officially stated the need for an international organization to replace the League of Nations. That goal was reaffirmed at the Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, and in August 1944 Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Over seven weeks, the delegates sketched out the form of the world body but often disagreed over issues of membership and voting. Compromise was reached by the "Big Three"--the United States, Britain, and the USSR--at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and all countries that had adhered to the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations were invited to the United Nations founding conference.
On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco with 50 nations represented. Three months later, during which time Germany had surrendered, the final Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted by the delegates. On June 26, it was signed. The Charter, which consisted of a preamble and 19 chapters divided into 111 articles, called for the U.N. to maintain international peace and security, promote social progress and better standards of life, strengthen international law, and promote the expansion of human rights. The principal organs of the U.N., as specified in the Charter, were the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council.
On October 24, 1945, the U.N. Charter came into force upon its ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first U.N. General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, opened in London on January 10, 1946. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone was laid for the present United Nations headquarters, located in New York City. Since 1945, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded five times to the United Nations and its organizations and five times to individual U.N. officials
'June 26, 1945, a date that will live in infamy'
The war wasn't even over, Mao had not yet overrun China, and Israel was still a possibility someday.
and just imagine the millions of lives that would have been saved if someone had put a bullet in Stalin's head...
Yeah, they got kind of vengeful after the war, which some of their French and probably other fellow travellers either did not believe or did not speak against or just plain ignored and still ignore. It's tough to know how things are going to turn out when they are happening, but most of the time it will turn out like it looks.
The Toothless Tiger turns fifty. Yippee.
The Toothless Tiger turns sixty. Yippee.
BOOOOOOOOOOO
My great aunt signed this thing:
http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/learn/documents/gildersleeve.htm
A Black Day Indeed.
To top it off the movie Black Hawk Down is on right now on FX. What a corrupt and inept body the UN has been? Sheez.
Actually, they've proven themselves quite "ept" at getting our soldiers killed and making even more of a mess out of Somalia.
We're watching "Knute Rockne, All-American" on ESPN Classic
with Ronald Reagan & Pat O'Brien(what else would an Irishman be watching tonight! LOL)
BTW. What has been happening with Somalia of late? That whole eastern side of the African continent seems to have fallen off my radar screen.
Unfortunately, al-Qaeda still managed to hang around the place, and after 9/11 we were constrained to take certain actions which (if I recall correctly) impeded Somalia's commerce with the outside world. I don't know what course things have taken since then.
So it seems that until one central government can rule without civil war, the country wil always be a hot bed of poverty and infighting.
Economic life continues, in part because much activity is local and relatively easily protected. Agriculture is the most important sector, with livestock normally accounting for about 40% of GDP and about 65% of export earnings, but Saudi Arabia's recent ban on Somali livestock, because of Rift Valley Fever concerns, has severely hampered the sector. Nomads and semi-nomads, who are dependent upon livestock for their livelihood, make up a large portion of the population. Livestock, hides, fish, charcoal, and bananas are Somalia's principal exports, while sugar, sorghum, corn, qat, and machined goods are the principal imports. Somalia's small industrial sector, based on the processing of agricultural products, has largely been looted and sold as scrap metal. Despite the seeming anarchy, Somalia's service sector has managed to survive and grow. Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In the absence of a formal banking sector, money exchange services have sprouted throughout the country, handling between $500 million and $1 billion in remittances annually. Mogadishu's main market offers a variety of goods from food to the newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate, and militias provide security. The ongoing civil disturbances and clan rivalries, however, have interfered with any broad-based economic development and international aid arrangements. In 2004 Somalia's overdue financial obligations to the IMF continued to grow. Statistics on Somalia's GDP, growth, per capita income, and inflation should be viewed skeptically.
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