In short
In July 1944, delegates from 44 allied nations gathered at a New Hampshire hotel to design a new global financial system before World War II even ended. They created the International Monetary Fund and World Bank—institutions that would shape international economics for decades—and pegged currencies to the US dollar, which itself was backed by gold.
How it unfolded.
The five-minute version
What actually happened.
The Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was the gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate what would be the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.
Day by day.
Across 27 years, 5 pivotal moments.
Timeline
How it actually unfolded.
Conference opens
730 delegates from 44 allied nations convene at Mount Washington Hotel to negotiate the postwar monetary order.
Conference concludes
Delegates finalize agreements establishing the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and fixed exchange rate system.
IMF and World Bank formally established
The International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development officially begin operations.
Currency convertibility restored
Major European currencies become convertible to dollars, activating the full Bretton Woods system in practice.
Nixon ends dollar-gold convertibility
President Richard Nixon suspends the conversion of dollars to gold, effectively ending the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system.
The numbers.
3 numbers that anchor the scale.
By the numbers
The countable parts.
Delegates present
0
Allied nations represented
0
System duration
0–1971
The chain begins -
The chain of consequence.
Impact
What followed.
Bretton Woods established the postwar monetary order that made the US dollar the world's reserve currency and created enduring institutions—the IMF and World Bank—that still govern international finance. The system itself lasted until 1971, when Nixon ended dollar-gold convertibility, but the institutions born here remain central to global economic governance.
Captured in time.
Captured before it changed
The web as it looked, the day it happened.
Wayback Machine snapshots of the pages people actually loaded that day. Click any card to open the archive at full size.
Sources & citations.
Sources
Where this came from.
Every claim on this page traces to a public, license-clean source. We don't asterisk well.
Wikipedia
1 source- 1.Bretton Woods Conference
en.wikipedia.org