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Convening the World: 60 Years of UN General Assemblies

January 10, 2006

The first UN General Assembly convened 60 years ago Tuesday. A DW-WORLD dossier.

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British Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee adresses the first UN General AssemblyImage: AP
At 4 p.m. on Jan. 10, 1946, representatives from 51 nations met in London's Central Hall for the first General Assembly of the newly-founded United Nations.

"Determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which, twice in our lifetime, has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and imbued with an abiding faith in freedom and justice, we have come to this British capital ... to constitute the General Assembly of the United Nations," the meeting's chairman, Zuleta Angel from Colombia, said in his opening remarks.

"The whole world now waits upon our decisions, and rightly -- yet with understandable anxiety -- looks to us now to show ourselves capable of mastering our problems," he continued. "We cannot, fail mankind again in the face of the suffering which has supervened upon the most terrible and devastating of wars."

Read about the UN's history and its continuing role as a truly global organization in this dossier.

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