How the United Nations Assembly has evolved

Every year since January 1946, when 51 states assembled in London, heads of state and government or their representatives attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). They met in London because there was no UN Headquarters in New York yet. There were no Africans in that first UNGA that was for Western countries. Prime Minister Clement Atlee talked of England as “the ancient home of liberty and order”, even as he prosecuted imperial wars.

John D. Rockefeller Jr facilitated the permanent move to New York. He bought land in Manhattan, near the Rockefeller Plaza, in December 1946 for $8.5 million from real estate speculator William Zeckendorf. He bought it for the United Nations and a possible one world government. Architect Wallace Harrison designed the headquarters building that was completed in 1952. Thereafter, UNGA leaders would meet in the new structure.