Henry Dunant was searching out Emperor Napoleon III for a business document he needed when he stumbled on the Battle Solferino, in Lombardy. Franco-Sardinian troops were fighting Austrian soldiers in indiscriminate, bloody warfare. Thousands of soldiers from both sides lay wounded on the field, with no one making much of an effort to help them. Dunant was appalled. He returned to his native Switzerland to mount an operation to help the dying soldiers, regardless of whose side they fought for. Tutti fratelli became his slogan. All are brothers.

On this day, October 29, in 1863 an international convention took place in Geneva to make a permanent organization to help war victims. They decided their symbol would be a red cross on a white background — so they came to be known as the Red Cross.

The ICRC remained resolutely apolitical. The year after formation they worked on both sides of the front lines in Germany’s war against Denmark. They visited prisoners of war when it was possible, passing their names back to their family members. Their only goal that could be called political, and that still is shared by the group’s 185 or so international chapters, is the end of warfare.