Milestones in Rotary's History

  • 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, Illinois, USA

  • 1912 The Rotary Club of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, becomes the first club outside the United States to be officially chartered

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

  • 1932 4-Way Test formulated by Chicago Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor

  • 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

  • 1985 Rotary announces PolioPlus program 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

  • 2004 RI's largest convention with 45,381 attendees, held in Osaka, Japan

  • 2005 Rotary Celebrates centennial in Chicago, Illinois, USA