45 Fun Facts About Red Cross

Which future animation pioneer drove an ambulance for the American Red Cross in France at the end of World War I?

Walt Disney served as a Red Cross ambulance driver in France, then returned to Kansas City in 1919, where a commercial art studio job introduced him to Ub Iwerks, his future collaborator.

The 1859 battle whose wounded inspired the Red Cross was fought near which Italian town?

Solferino, in Lombardy, saw losses so heavy that they helped bring about the armistice that ended the war.

Which crime novelist volunteered as a nurse at a Red Cross hospital in her hometown of Torquay during World War I?

Agatha Christie began her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1916 during that war work; published in 1920, it introduced Hercule Poirot.

Which national Red Cross society ran the 1945 'White Buses' rescue of concentration-camp prisoners?

The Swedish Red Cross, under its vice-president Count Folke Bernadotte, negotiated with Himmler to bring some 15,000 prisoners out of German camps in white-painted buses in March and April 1945.

Two of the ICRC's five founders in 1863 shared which profession?

Doctors Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir were the surgeons among the five, whose campaign produced the first Geneva Convention, obliging armies to treat wounded enemies too.

Which Swiss general sat on the five-man committee that founded the Red Cross?

Guillaume-Henri Dufour had put down the separatist Sonderbund in 1847 with notable restraint, and later presided over the congress that drew up the first Geneva Convention.

Using the red cross emblem to trick and kill an enemy is which war crime?

Perfidy with the red cross is banned because such misuse can weaken the emblem's protection and put genuine aid workers in danger.

Which French pacifist shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with the Red Cross co-founder?

Frédéric Passy wrote a plea for peace in the newspaper Le Temps during the 1867 Luxembourg crisis, and that year he founded a peace league.

World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day falls on 8 May because that date marks what?

Henry Dunant's birthday, 8 May 1828, marks the day; the businessman went bankrupt in 1867, left his home city and spent decades in poverty.

In which Swiss village did Dunant spend his final years and die in 1910?

Heiden's hospital took in the destitute founder in 1892, and a journalist who met him there in 1895 revived his fame and brought him new honours.

Besides the Red Cross, which other organisation did Dunant help found, starting its Geneva chapter in 1852?

The YMCA's Geneva chapter was started with Dunant's help in 1852, and three years later he took part in the Paris meeting that founded the YMCA's world alliance.

Which American novelist was badly wounded in Italy in 1918 while serving as an American Red Cross ambulance driver?

Ernest Hemingway fell for Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky while recovering in Milan; she declined to marry him, and the war gave him material for A Farewell to Arms.

Which state first used the Red Crescent in the 1870s?

The Ottoman Empire's insistence got the red crescent accepted beside the cross, and it is now the emblem of the national societies in most Muslim countries.

Which country used the Red Lion and Sun emblem from 1924 to 1980?

Iran, under the shahs, had the red lion and sun recognised in 1929; the Islamic Republic switched to the red crescent in 1980 while reserving the right to revive the old emblem.

What is the name of the fourth protection emblem, adopted by a vote in 2005?

The Red Crystal came with Protocol III in 2005, letting national societies that use neither a cross nor a crescent take part in the movement.

Israel's national society, admitted to the movement in 2006, is called what?

Magen David Adom was kept out of the movement for decades because it would not drop its red Star of David emblem, and it joined alongside the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

Which group got a Geneva Convention of its own for the first time in 1949?

Civilians got the Fourth Geneva Convention, drafted in response to World War II's atrocities; it was the first Geneva Convention not written for combatants.

Which Nazi ghetto was dressed up to fool Red Cross visitors in 1944?

Theresienstadt was made to look less crowded for the visit, as the Nazis deported thousands of its residents to Auschwitz beforehand.

Which royal toured an Angolan minefield on a 1997 Red Cross trip?

Princess Diana spoke in favour of banning anti-personnel mines on the trip, and the Ottawa Treaty banning them was signed that December.

Besides name, rank and serial number, what must a questioned prisoner of war give?

Date of birth completes the list, and a prisoner who wilfully withholds these details may lose privileges of rank or status.

Which American nurse, known as the 'Angel of the Battlefield', founded the American Red Cross in 1881?

Clara Barton brought supplies and nursing care to soldiers on Civil War battlefields, and she later lobbied for years until the US joined the Geneva Convention.

Under which president did the US finally join the Geneva Convention, after years of lobbying by the American Red Cross founder?

Chester Arthur was president when the Senate ratified the treaty, and Congress later gave the American Red Cross a federal charter.

The 1900 hurricane in which Texas city was the American Red Cross founder's last field operation?

Galveston's 1900 storm drew the 78-year-old founder into the field for the last time, and four years later critics inside the society forced her to resign.

What kind of disaster in Michigan in 1881 prompted the American Red Cross's first relief effort?

Forest fires in Michigan's Thumb region gave the new society its first relief work, fitting the founder's pitch that it could help in peacetime disasters, not only wars.

Which future president led 1927 Mississippi flood relief alongside the Red Cross?

Herbert Hoover supervised the relief as commerce secretary, and the flood fed the Great Migration of Black Southerners to northern cities.

Who was the first medical director of the American Red Cross blood programme in 1941?

Charles Drew had run the Blood for Britain project, and he criticised the military's rule that the Red Cross first exclude, then segregate, blood from Black donors.

The British Red Cross was formed in 1870 at the outbreak of which war?

The Franco-Prussian War prompted a public meeting in London on 4 August 1870 that founded the society, which then aided both warring armies.

The ICRC's first field mission, in 1864, went to a war between Prussia and which country?

Denmark's war saw ICRC delegates work on each side of the front line, beginning the ICRC's role as a neutral go-between for warring parties.

Which French pacifist writer volunteered at the ICRC's prisoner-of-war agency and won the 1915 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Romain Rolland protested against the war in his 1915 pamphlet 'Above the Battle'.

Which Norwegian explorer, the ICRC's partner in repatriating WWI prisoners, devised a refugee passport?

Fridtjof Nansen, as high commissioner for repatriating prisoners, sent more than 400,000 of them home, and his 'Nansen passport' gave stateless refugees papers.

Which war produced the American Red Cross poster 'The Greatest Mother in the World'?

The First World War produced Alonzo Earl Foringer's 1918 poster of a giant nurse cradling a wounded soldier on a stretcher, which became the society's best-known image.

Who created the American Red Cross War Council on 10 May 1917?

Woodrow Wilson set up the War Council to raise money and direct the society's work once the United States entered the war.

Which blood type is usually cited as the 'universal donor' for red-cell transfusions?

O negative red cells lack the A, B and Rh D antigens, so emergency teams can give them before a patient's blood type is known.

Which medal, created in 1912, is the highest international award for nurses?

The Florence Nightingale Medal was reserved for women until a 1991 rule change let men receive it too.

In 1870, the future American Red Cross founder helped which German royal with wartime relief work?

The Grand Duchess of Baden worked with her as she organised war relief, an experience that inspired her to bring the Red Cross to America.

Which 1889 disaster, killing over 2,200, was an early American Red Cross relief effort?

The Johnstown Flood became the society's first major disaster relief effort, and its founder stayed on the scene for more than five months.

Which US company has registered the red cross symbol for its medicinal products?

Johnson & Johnson had used the red cross since 1887, so a 1910 law letting users from before 1905 keep the emblem protected its trademark.

Which monarch granted the British Red Cross its first royal charter in 1908?

Edward VII granted the charter a year before the society began forming Voluntary Aid Detachments to support military medical services in wartime.

In 1914 the British Red Cross formed the Joint War Committee with which body?

The Order of St John pooled volunteers with the society in Voluntary Aid Detachments, and the pair joined forces again when war came in 1939.

Which ICRC president of 1928–1944 had earlier sat on the Permanent Court of International Justice?

Max Huber, a Zurich lawyer, was also the arbitrator in the 1928 Island of Palmas case, which gave the island to the Netherlands rather than the United States.

What was the ICRC's original Latin motto?

Inter Arma Caritas, 'amid war, charity', is still the ICRC's motto, while the federation of national societies chose Per Humanitatem ad Pacem instead.

Which street artist gave a hospital 'Game Changer', a painting of a boy playing with a red-cross nurse doll?

Banksy left the painting at a Southampton hospital in 2020, and it was auctioned in 2021 to raise money for NHS charities.

In 1990 the ICRC became the first private organisation granted what by the UN General Assembly?

Observer status was granted to the ICRC by UN General Assembly resolution 45/6 on 16 October 1990, the first time a private organisation received it; the IFRC followed in 1994.

Who became the first woman to head the ICRC when she took office in October 2022?

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, a Swiss diplomat who had headed the UN Development Programme's Europe and Central Asia bureau, succeeded Peter Maurer on 1 October 2022; the first woman member, Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was co-opted in 1918.

In 1859 Dunant went to Italy to petition which emperor about his Algerian business?

Napoleon III was directing the French armies in Italy, and on the way to his headquarters Dunant came upon a battle's wounded and organised care.