The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945. On 1 January 1942, during the Arcadia Conference, the Allied "Big Four"—the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China—signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration, and the next day the representatives of 22 other nations added their signatures. The other original signatories in the next day (2 January 1942) were the four dominions of the British Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa); eight European governments-in-exile (Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia); nine countries in the Americas (Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama); and one non-independent government, the British-appointed government of India. The Declaration by United Nations became the basis of the United Nations (UN), which was formalized in the UN Charter, signed by 50 countries on 26 June 1945. Background The Allies of World War II first expressed their principles and vision for the post-World War II world in the Declaration of St. James's Palace in June 1941. The Anglo-Soviet Agreement was signed in July 1941 forming an alliance between the two countries. The Atlantic Charter was agreed a month later. Drafting The Declaration by United Nations was drafted at the White House on December 29, 1941, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins. It incorporated Soviet suggestions but left no role for France. Roosevelt first coined the term "United Nations" to describe the Allied countries. Roosevelt suggested "United Nations" as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers" (the U.S. was never formally a member of the Allies of World War I but entered the war in 1917 as a self-styled "Associated Power"). Churchill accepted it and noted that the phrase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). The term was first officially used on 1–2 January 1942, when 26 governments signed the declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted. The Declaration by United Nations was the basis of the modern United Nations. The term "United Nations" became synonymous during the war with the Allies and was