International Red Cross Founded: 18 Nations Agree

Delegates from sixteen European nations and several humanitarian organizations gathered in Geneva on October 26, 1863, and over four days of deliberation adopted a series of resolutions that created the International Committee of the Red Cross, establishing the framework for the modern laws of war. The conference concluded on October 29 with eighteen states endorsing the principles that wounded soldiers should be treated regardless of which side they fought for, that medical personnel on the battlefield should be considered neutral, and that a distinctive emblem, a red cross on a white background, should identify them. The driving force behind the conference was Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman who had witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in 1859, where roughly 40,000 Austrian, French, and Sardinian soldiers lay dead, dying, or wounded on the field with virtually no organized medical care. Dunant mobilized local civilians to tend the wounded of all nationalities and later published A Memory of Solferino, a graphic account of the suffering he witnessed, which he distributed to political and military leaders across Europe. Dunant's book proposed two ideas: that every country should establish a permanent voluntary relief society to assist military medical services during wartime, and that an international agreement should protect wounded soldiers and those who cared for them. The Geneva lawyer Gustave Moynier and the Swiss general Guillaume-Henri Dufour helped organize the 1863 conference that translated these ideas into institutional form. The conference's resolutions led directly to the First Geneva Convention, signed in August 1864 by twelve states, which established the legal protections for wounded soldiers and medical personnel that remain the foundation of international humanitarian law. The red cross symbol, an inversion of the Swiss flag chosen to honor the host country, became one of the most recognized emblems in the world. The organization that began with Dunant's horror at Solferino has since expanded into a global movement with 192 national societies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The Geneva Conventions have been revised and expanded three times, most recently in 1949, and now protect not only wounded soldiers but also prisoners of war and civilians in conflict zones. Every armed conflict on Earth is subject to rules that trace directly to those four days in Geneva.