Atlantic Charter

More to Explore

People and Groups

Themes

Events

This Day in History

May 26

World War II

Britain's Operation Dynamo gets underway as President Roosevelt makes a radio appeal for the Red Cross, 1940

On this day in 1940, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt makes known the dire straits of Belgian and French civilians suffering the fallout of the…

Recommended Articles

  • Yalta Conference

    The Yalta Conference called for Germany's unconditional surrender at the end of World War II.

  • Neville Chamberlain

    (born March 18, 1869, Birmingham, Warwickshire, Eng.—died Nov. 9, 1940, Heckfield, near Reading, Hampshire) British prime minister from May 28, 1937, to May 10, 1940, whose name is identified with the policy of “appeasement” toward Adolf Hitler's Germany in the period immediately preceding World War II.

  • Lend-Lease Act

    The Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II.

  • German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

    In 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union concluded the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which both countries, despite their history of fierce enmity, agreed to take no military action against the other for 10 years.

Joint declaration issued on Aug. 14, 1941, during World War II, by the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt of the still non-belligerent United States, after four days of conferences aboard warships anchored at Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland.

A statement of common aims, the charter held that (1) neither nation sought any aggrandizement; (2) they desired no territorial changes without the free assent of the peoples concerned; (3) they respected every people's right to choose its own form of government and wanted sovereign rights and self-government restored to those forcibly deprived of them; (4) they would try to promote equal access for all states to trade and to raw materials; (5) they hoped to promote worldwide collaboration so as to improve labour standards, economic progress, and social security; (6) after the destruction of “Nazi tyranny,” they would look for a peace under which all nations could live safely within their boundaries, without fear or want; (7) under such a peace the seas should be free; and (8) pending a general security through renunciation of force, potential aggressors must be disarmed.

The Atlantic Charter was subsequently incorporated by reference in the Declaration of the United Nations (Jan. 1, 1942).

Copyright © 1994-2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.

Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!

Advertisement

Shop HISTORY

See More