Nurses serving with the American Red Cross in Paris, France, in May 1919

© Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Image

International Nurses Day

Today we’re celebrating International Nurses Day, marked on 12 May each year, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. Nurses have borne the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic. For more than two years, they have faced staffing shortages while dealing with a health crisis of massive proportions. For all that nurses have endured, and for all their efforts, we offer our heartfelt thanks.

The American Red Cross had already been operating for nearly 40 years when our homepage photograph was taken in Paris in May 1919, soon after the end of the First World War. The American nurses had come to France to join others from the National Red Cross Societies of the Allied Powers (UK, France, Italy and Japan), in a bid to expand their healthcare activities to more countries. Today, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is a worldwide humanitarian aid organisation that reaches 160 million people each year.