United Nations Secretary-General

The United Nations Secretary-General is one of the most important people in the United Nations. The Secretary-General is important in international talks. The current Secretary-General is António Guterres.

Secretaries-General

	Photo	Secretary-General	Dates in office	Country of origin	Remarks	Ref
		Sir Gladwyn Jebb	October 24, 1945– February 2, 1946	United Kingdom Europe	Acting Secretary-General
1		Trygve Lie	February 2, 1946 – November 10, 1952	Norway Europe	Resigned	[1]
2		Dag Hammarskjöld	April 10, 1953 – September 18, 1961	Sweden (Europe)	Died in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)	[2]
3		U Thant	November 30, 1961 – December 31, 1971	Burma Asia	Retired after 2nd term for personal reasons	[3]
4		Kurt Waldheim	January 1, 1972 – December 31, 1981	Austria Europe	Chinese veto for his third term	[4]
5		Javier Pérez de Cuéllar	January 1, 1982 – December 31, 1991	Peru South America	Refused a third term	[5]
6		Boutros Boutros-Ghali	January 1, 1992 – December 31, 1996	Egypt Africa	American veto of his second term	[6]
7		Kofi Annan	January 1, 1997– December 31, 2006	Ghana Africa	Retired after two terms	[7]
8		Ban Ki-moon	January 1, 2007– December 31, 2016	South Korea Asia	Retired after two terms	[8]
9		António Guterres	January 1, 2017– present	Portugal Europe		[9]