Short answers, pulled from the story.
The UN Charter was signed on the 26th of June 1945 by representatives of 50 countries. The United Nations officially came into existence at 20:07 UTC on the 24th of October 1945, upon ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of the other 46 nations.
The United Nations has 193 member states, representing nearly all of the world's sovereign states. There are also two non-member observer states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. South Sudan, which joined on the 14th of July 2011, was the most recent addition.
The UN Charter established five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat. A sixth, the Trusteeship Council, suspended its operations on the 1st of November 1994 upon the independence of Palau.
The five permanent members of the Security Council are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They hold veto power over UN resolutions, allowing any one of them to block adoption of a resolution. The Council also has ten elected members serving two-year terms.
António Guterres of Portugal is the current Secretary-General, having become the ninth to hold the office on the 1st of January 2017 when he replaced Ban Ki-moon. He had previously served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UN began facing a financial crisis in 2025 resulting from delays in member state payments and refusals to pay assessed amounts. On the 19th of May 2025, only 61 countries paid their dues on time and in full. In January 2026, Guterres sent a letter to all members warning of an imminent financial collapse.
Yes. The UN as a whole was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, sharing it with Kofi Annan. UN Peacekeeping Forces received the prize in 1988, and secretaries-general Dag Hammarskjöld and Kofi Annan were each awarded it, along with agencies such as UNICEF and the International Atomic Energy Agency.