The First International Organizations

Long before the United Nations, the shrinking world of the 19th century pushed governments and citizens to cooperate across borders. The International Telegraph Union, founded in Paris in 1865, set common rules so messages could cross national networks, and the General Postal Union, created in Bern in 1874 and soon renamed the Universal Postal Union, let letters travel worldwide at agreed rates. The 1884 International Meridian Conference in Washington chose Greenwich as the prime meridian, helping standardize time zones.

Citizens built their own networks too: the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, the International Olympic Committee in 1894, and the invented language Esperanto, published by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 in the hope of uniting people. After World War I, the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (both founded in 1919–1920) attempted broader cooperation. These early bodies show that globalization required shared rules and standards.