Red Cross – Ingliando

On this day, the ‘First Geneva Convention‘, officially the ‘Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field‘, was held in the Alabama room at Geneva’s Hotel de Ville. Sixteen countries sent a total of twenty-six delegates and the meeting was presided over by General Guillaume Henri Dufour. The movement for an international set of laws governing the treatment and care for the wounded and prisoners of war began when relief activist Henry Dunant witnessed the Battle of Solferino in 1859. Dunant called for an international conference and soon co-founded with the Swiss lawyer Gustave Moynier, the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863. Representatives of 12 states signed the convention in 1864, followed by a number of other states in the ensuing years. The original document is preserved in the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern.

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On this day in London, England, George Williams founded the Young Men’s Christian Association, more commonly known as the YMCA and in some places simply as ‘The Y’. Williams was a London draper who was typical of the young men drawn to the cities by the Industrial Revolution. Concerned about the lack of healthy activities for young men in major cities, where the options available were usually just taverns and brothels, William’s expressed purpose was “the improving of the spiritual condition of young men engaged in the drapery, embroidery, and other trades.” The idea of creating a truly global movement with an international headquarters was led by Henry Dunant, Secretary of YMCA Geneva, who would later go on to found the International Committee of the Red Cross and win the first Nobel Peace Prize.