Days Until World Red Cross Day

About World Red Cross Day

May 8 marks the birthday of Henry Dunant, born in 1828, the Swiss businessman and humanitarian whose eyewitness account of the 1859 Battle of Solferino's aftermath led directly to the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The day, more fully titled World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day, celebrates the principles of humanity, impartiality, and voluntary service underpinning the international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

The Red Cross emblem itself — a red cross on a white background — is a reversal of the Swiss flag's colors, a deliberate tribute to Dunant's Swiss nationality chosen at the movement's founding conference.

Dunant later co-founded what became the Nobel Peace Prize, and was himself among the first two recipients of that prize in 1901, a direct link between the humanitarian movement he founded and the award later created partly in that spirit.