The RGHF Timeline
Twelve decades of service before self, in the order it happened.
- November 8, 1881 – November 9, 1963
Jean Thomson Harris
Jean Thomson Harris (1881-1963), Scottish-born wife of Rotary founder Paul Harris, from their meeting on a hike to a 1934 homecoming banquet in Edinburgh.
- February 23, 1905
- 1910
The First "Convention"
More properly a meeting, or gathering that did result in an association
- 1912
3rd Convention
In 1912 the movement became the International Association of Rotary Clubs in Duluth, the Zenith City of the USA. The motion to change names was made by C E Fletcher of Winnipeg Rotary Club, Canada – the only 'international' club present. Telegrams from the British Isles were received at the Convention. Fletcher, incidentally, declined the offer of…
- 1921
12th convention – Edinburgh
It was THE Convention – "perhaps the most amazing- and certainly the most significant – of all the Rotary Conventions ever held".
- 1921
- January 10, 1924
- July 1, 1933
- July 10, 1939
- January 27, 1947
- July 1, 1987
- July 1, 1989
- 2008 – 2022
First Women RI Directors
This article traces pioneering women in Rotary International leadership, starting with Catherine Noyer-Riveau, the first female RI board director in 2008. It highlights successors including Betsy Demaray, Ann Britt Åsebol, Anne Matthews, and Celia Giay, the first South American woman director, marking milestones in RI and Rotary Foundation governance.
Browse every dated record, era by era
The spine above is the curated story. Everything the archive holds sits beneath it — open an era to read it, or follow an era title to its full archive page.