Rotary Milestones

• 1905: First Rotary club organized in Chicago, Illinois, USA

• 1908: Second club formed in San Francisco, California, USA

1910: First Rotary convention held in Chicago

• 1912: The Rotary Club of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, becomes the first club outside the United States to be officially chartered. (The club was formed in 1910.)

• 1917: Endowment fund, forerunner of The Rotary Foundation, established

• 1932: 4-Way Test formulated by Chicago Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor{{more}}

• 1945: Forty-nine Rotarians help draft United Nations Charter in San Francisco

• 1947: Rotary founder Paul Harris dies; first 18 Rotary Foundation scholarships granted

• 1962: First Interact club formed in Melbourne, Florida, USA

• 1965: Rotary Foundation launches Matching Grants and Group Study Exchange programs

• 1978: RI’s largest convention, with 39,834 registrants, held in Tokyo

• 1985: Rotary announces PolioPlus programme to immunize all the children of the world against polio

1989: Council on Legislation opens Rotary membership to women worldwide; Rotary clubs chartered in Budapest, Hungary, and Warsaw, Poland, for first time in almost 50 years

1990: Rotary Club of Moscow chartered first club in Soviet Union

• 1990-91: Preserve Planet Earth program inspires some 2,000 Rotary-sponsored environmental projects

• 1994: Western Hemisphere declared polio-free

• 1999: Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution established

• 2000: Western Pacific declared polio-free

• 2001: 30,000th Rotary club chartered

• 2002: Europe declared polio-free; first class of 70 Rotary Peace Scholars begin study

• 2003: Rotarians raise more than US$118 million to support the final stages of polio eradication