May 21:

1881 : American Red Cross founded

In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons
found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to
provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in
congruence with the International Red Cross.

Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and
wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the "Angel
of the Battlefield" for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President
Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war,
and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war she
succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the
Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp.

She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and
she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red
Cross. In 1873, she returned to the United States, and four years
later she organized an American branch of the International Red Cross.
The American Red Cross received its first U.S. federal charter in
1900. Barton headed the organization into her 80s and died in 1912.

history.com/tdih.do


1542 : De Soto dies in the American wilderness
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5021

1927 : Lindbergh lands in Paris
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6904

1932 : Earhart completes transatlantic flight
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5023

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