The United Nations was officially created when its charter was
signed on June 26, 1945, by 51 countries, including the United
States. The new international organization was the successor of
the League of Nations, which had been formed by U.S. president
Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I in an attempt to
prevent the kind of military aggression that might lead to
future global conflicts. Unfortunately, the League had proved to
be ineffective early on. Both Japan and Germany had withdrawn
from the organization in the early 1930s and had later become
the aggressors in World War II. Throughout 1943 and 1944,
representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, the
United Kingdom, and China—allies during World War II—had met to
discuss the formation of an international organization that
would replace the League of Nations. At the end of the war, this
organization—the United Nations—was formally established. The
U.N. grew from 51 members in 1945 to 185 by its fiftieth
anniversary in 1995.  The U.N.’s char