The United Nations Turns 80

80 years ago today (June 26, 1945), 45 nations signed the charter that founded the United Nations. Today it has 193 member states, nearly all the nations of the earth. It has done much good, but it has a long way to go in terms of realizing its stated goals of achieving international peace and security. Have things ever been worse globally?

Still I for one salute the attempt. In recognition of the day, I point you to a few related items:

On Eleanor Roosevelt, the first U.S. delegate to the UN General Assembly and the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission

On my good friend and once and future Harpo impersonator Seth Shelden, General Counsel and United Nations Liaison for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition working to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons.

On A Day at the United Nations, the comedy Billy Wilder almost made with the Marx Brothers.

And, lastly did you know that from 1946 through 1951, the Lake Success section of Great Neck (where I live) was the temporary home of the United Nations? Then or now, it is a crazy place to put an international deliberative body, surrounded by golf courses, highways, and once upon a time, big estates, like that of Broadway star Eddie Cantor. My friend Christy Hinko wrote this terrific piece in the Great Neck Record that tells more. Please check it out!