History
In 1899, a Post began in Denver, Colorado. There are two other Posts which claim to be the first, but the VFW national organization recognizes the Denver Post as being first; it is now officially "VFW Post 1, John S. Stewart Post".
The VFW name was created on September 17, 1914 at a conference at the Schenley Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The new organization was a merger of two prior veterans organizations, both beginning in 1899: the American Veterans of Foreign Service and the National Society of the Army of the Philippines. The former was formed for veterans of the Spanish–American War, while the latter was formed for veterans of the Philippine–American War.
On May 28, 1936, by an act of the United States Congress, the VFW became a government-chartered non-profit organization. As such, it receives no funding from United States tax receipts and is supported by charitable donations.
Read more about this topic: Veterans Of Foreign Wars
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)