The World Bank and IMF came into existence

On December 27, 1945, the financial architecture of the postwar world clicked into place. After enough governments had ratified the agreements drafted at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire, the Articles of Agreement entered into force, formally creating both the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development — the core of what became the World Bank.

That day, representatives from 21 countries convened in Washington, DC to become the Bank’s founding members, signing the Articles into effect. For the IMF, the threshold was met once governments holding the bulk of planned quotas had deposited their instruments of acceptance.

The twin institutions were designed to stabilize exchange rates and finance reconstruction, guarding against the economic chaos that had followed the First World War. Actual lending took time: the IMF did not begin financial operations until March 1947. But the paperwork of December 1945 marked the birth of the modern international economic order.