The first session of the Model United Nations of the Far West was held at Stanford University in 1951. Students from three western States gathered to debate issues that were, at the time, simultaneously being considered in the halls of United Nations Headquarters in New York. MUNFW has welcomed UN personnel and diplomatic staff, foreign dignitaries, and members of the international relations community. Prominent guests of the conference include Ralph Bunche, one of the most important American diplomats of the twentieth century. Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States and architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was the conference’s second keynote speaker. MUNFW made San Francisco, California, the birthplace of the United Nations, its permanent home in 1995.