The United Nations Charter went into effect on this day in 1945, officially bringing the United Nations into existence. The United Nations replaced the failed League of Nations as the main body for coordinating matters of concern to the world as a whole. In the wake of World War II, organizers saw the UN as a means to ensure that no such war would ever happen again.

They enshrined this hope in the charter, the preamble of which reads in part:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

…have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

Read the whole charter at the UN website. Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ is a little tricky when you represent all the people of the world, however. At the UN’s 60th birthday celebration in 2005, children sang the song in all six official languages of the organization: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.