After a secret meeting in Newfoundland, British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (both pictured) issued the Atlantic Charter, establishing a vision for a post–World War II world.

Newfoundland was a British dominion in eastern North America, today the modern Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It included the island of Newfoundland, and Labrador on the continental mainland. Newfoundland was one of the original dominions under the Balfour Declaration of 1926, and accordingly enjoyed a constitutional status equivalent to the other dominions of the time. Its dominion status was confirmed by the Statute of Westminster, 1931, although the statute was not otherwise applicable to Newfoundland.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. For some 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he was a member of parliament (MP) and represented a total of five constituencies over that time. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II.

The Atlantic Charter was a statement issued on 14 August 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II, months before the US officially entered the war. The joint statement, later dubbed the Atlantic Charter, outlined the aims of the United States and the United Kingdom for the postwar world as follows: no territorial aggrandizement, no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people (self-determination), restoration of self-government to those deprived of it, reduction of trade restrictions, global co-operation to secure better economic and social conditions for all, freedom from fear and want, freedom of the seas, abandonment of the use of force, and disarmament of aggressor nations. The charter's adherents signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which was the basis for the modern United Nations.