Home » Rotary » Rotary Milestones

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
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
1970	May 1970 The Rotary Club of Te Atatu North Rotary Club Chartered (Now Known as The Rotary Club of Waitakere City) (Name Changed 1990)
1978	RI's largest convention, with 39,834 registrants, held in Tokyo
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 - 1991	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