In the year 1905, in Chicago, a Lawyer called PAUL HARRIS found it lonely in that busy city and felt the need of forming and association of friends for fellowship and business promotion. He met other three like minded people in Silverster Schiele, a coal merchant, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer and formed the 1st Rotary Club of Chicago on 23rd February, 1905.

In Rotary World., 23rd February is designated as World Understanding and Peace Day and the month of February is observed as World Understanding and Peace Month.

The First President of the Club was Silverster Schiele and not the founder of Rotary, Paul Harris.

Weekly meetings were held in Rotation at each member�s place of business to acquaint others, one another�s vocation. Hence the name Rotary was adopted since early days.

In 1910, there were 16 clubs in USA and the first formed outside USA was at Winnipeg, Canada in the year 1911. Prior to this, clubs in USA formed an association, called National Association of Rotary Clubs, soon to change to International Association of Rotary Clubs, once Rotary moved outside the USA.This name was further shortened to Rotary International in 1922. Although Paul Harris was not the first President of the first club, he was the first president of the Rotary International from 1910 to 1912.

As Rotary grew, its objectives from just fellowship and business promotion of Rotarians, changed to the ideal of service and welfare of community. In 1907, Chicago club undertook Rotary�s first Community project, a Public Comfort Station near City hall. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self. Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics, called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into hundreds of languages.

During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding. In 1945, 49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in Rotary publications. Rotary International's relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London Rotary conference that promoted international cultural and educational exchanges. Attended by ministers of education and observers from around the world, and chaired by a past president of RI, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO in 1946.

An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good in the world," became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in his honor, totaling US$2 million, launched the Foundation's first program � graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range of humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding throughout the world.

In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world's children against polio. Working in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and national governments thorough its PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized more than one billion children worldwide. By the 2005 target date for certification of a polio-free world, Rotary will have contributed half a billion dollars to the cause.

As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk. The organization admitted women for the first time (worldwide) in 1989 and claims more than 145,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 32,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.