After some eight years of construction, the Erie Canal officially opened 200 years ago this weekend. The 363-mile (584-km) canal, which connects the Great Lakes with New York City via the Hudson River at Albany, cost some $7 million and was completed two years ahead of schedule. In a grand ceremony, New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton traveled the length of the canal, and at the end of the trip, emptied a keg of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean (pictured below). The canal’s success propelled New York City into a major commercial center and encouraged canal construction throughout the United States.

The charter for the UN—the world’s premier international organization, established at the end of the World War II to maintain peace and friendly relations among nations—entered into force 80 years ago this weekend. The United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union took the lead in designing the organization and determining its decision-making structure and functions. According to its Charter, the UN strives “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,...to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,...to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”