Timeline of events in humanitarian relief and development

The following is a timeline of selected notable events in the history of humanitarian aid, international relief and development.

• 1859 (June 24) – Battle of Solferino: Henry Dunant (who went on to found the International Committee of the Red Cross) is inspired to organise to assist the victims of war.
• 1863 – foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
• 1864 – first action of Red Cross delegates at Dybbol, Denmark.
• 1877 – Famine Relief Fund set up in the United Kingdom for people suffering in the 1876-78 Bengal Famine in British India. By the end of October, £426,000 had been raised.
• 1881 – Clara Barton establishes the American Red Cross.
• 1937 – Tan Kah Kee presides over fundraising efforts in which overseas Chinese, especially Singaporean Chinese, contribute millions of Straits dollars worth of humanitarian aid in response to the Second Sino-Japanese War.
• 1946 – President Harry Truman and others send care packages to the battered port of Le Havre, France.
• 1948 (June 28) – the United States and United Kingdom governments fly supplies into the Western-held sectors of Berlin over the blockade during 1948-49, known as the Berlin Airlift.
• 1968 – Biafran War: disagreement about how to deal with gross human rights abuses causes a split that will result in a group of Red Cross doctors forming Médecins Sans Frontières.
• 1971 – Creation of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders - MSF) in France by a group of French Doctors in the aftermath of Nigerian Civil War.
• 1978 – Massive number of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos flee to neighbouring countries where they are received by UN agencies like the UNHCR, and private non-governmental agencies. The largest numbers flee to Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and China.
• 1980 (January 1) – an earthquake in Azores Islands, Portugal - leads to relief response by Portuguese government and United States Military from Lajes Air Force Base and Naval Security Group Activity Terceira.
• 1985 – Ethiopian famine leads to massive relief response by the United States and other countries.
• 1992 – Operation Provide Relief, humanitarian relief for Somalia, is led by the United States. After looting of the aid, it is reorganized as Operation Restore Hope, an American military operation with the support of the United Nations to deliver humanitarian aid and restore order to Somalia, that eventually leads to the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.
• 1993 – Workers' Aid for Bosnia is typical of many community-level voluntary organizations formed in the United Kingdom to directly support the victims of the violence in Yugoslavia, as a direct result of public outrage.
• 1994 – Great Lakes Refugee Crisis in Central Africa. Humanitarian relief to refugees fleeing Rwanda is distributed primarily in Congo/Zaire, and Tanzania.
• 1995 – responding to a flood in North Korea which had caused a famine, the United States government initially provided over $8 million in general humanitarian aid (the People's Republic of China was the only country to initially contribute more aid). However, eight years later, the United States government has provided $644 million in aid to the country which comprises nearly 50% of the aid going to North Korea.
• 1999 – Kosovo War and Refugee Crisis. Serb military action led to the flight of refugees to Albania and other neighbouring countries where they were received by UNHCR and other agencies. NATO responded with a bombing campaign against Serbia. Charitable groups from around Europe send many aid convoys similar to those sent to Bosnia several years previously; Aid Convoy is founded.
• 2008 – 2009 – 2008–09 Gaza Strip aid after Gaza War and several aid initiatives during the Blockade of the Gaza Strip.
• 2010s – Humanitarian aid during the Syrian Civil War has been maintained inside Syria and on refugees camps by international non-governmental organizations (ICRC, several UN-organizations), neighboring countries such as Jordan, Turkey and Israel, the European Union, several European states, United States, Russia and Iran.
• Attacks on humanitarian workers