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 |
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| 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 to 1991 | Preserve Planet Earth program inspires some 2,000 Rotary-sponsored environmental projects |
| 1994 | Western Hemisphere declared polio-free |
| 1999 | Rotary Center 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 | Rotary International hosts its largest Convention in Osaka, Japan. A record 45,881 Rotarians from 113 Countries attend |
| 2005 | Rotary Celebrates its 100th Anniversary |
| 2006 | Only 4 Countries remain polio endemic: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Parkinstan. New Zealander Rotarian Bill Boyd inducted as RI World President. |
| 2007 | Rotary Foundation celebrates millionth Paul Harris Award |
| 2008 | Rotary launches the Gates Foundation “End Polio” Challenge |
| 2009 | Rotary celebrates the 100th Rotary International Convention in Birmingham, England The worlds' largest artificial reef was built by a Rotary Club in the Phillipines - in the shape of a Rotary wheel |