What happen in 1864?

Answer 1

The Quebec Conference. The now fathers of Canada gathered in Quebec to discuss confederation and set 72 resolutions, which were revised at the London Conference.

And President Lincoln gets reelected.

Answer 2

Of great note in the year 1864 was the signing of the First Geneva Convention and the founding of the International Red Cross.

The concept was born on June 24, 1859, when Swiss businessman and humanitarian, Jean-Henri Dunant (Henry Dunant, in English), witnessed at first hand - on what was intended to be a business trip - the horrible aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in Italy, where an estimated 40,000 soldiers were left dead and dying, with effectively no medical help or comfort of any kind.

Dunant organized locals to help the soldiers, encouraging them to disregard the uniforms worn by the men and to see them simply as human beings - husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers - in desperate need.

Dunant subsequently founded a committee with four other leading Geneva citizens which met to organize an international conference aiming to implement Dunant's goal of forming voluntary organizations dedicated to assisting soldiers wounded in armed conflict. The committee met in February, 1863, and as a result of their work, twenty-six diplomatic service delegates from sixteen countries attended an official conference in Geneva on August 22, 1864.

As a result of this conference, the First Geneva Convention was adopted, legally binding signatory countries to ten articles consisting of strict rules guaranteeing neutrality and protection during armed conflict for wounded military personnel, medical field personnel, and certain humanitarian organizations.

In the same year, 1864, Louis Appia and Charles van de Velde became the first neutral workers to serve during armed conflict - the Battle of Dybbøl - under the red-on-white symbol of the International Red Cross.

So, five years after Jean-Henri Dunant's first horrific confrontation with the inhuman plight of wounded military personnel, and just eighteen months after the first meeting of the Geneva Committee of the Five, the First Geneva Convention was been signed, and the International Red Cross became a fact of modern life; a symbol, if ever there was one, of mankind's continuing steps towards a truly civilized future.

Today, the IFRC - the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - continues the work officially begun in 1864, but conceived on a bloody battlefield five years earlier by one ruggedly-determined humanitarian with the incredible will to bring a near-impossible dream to solid international reality. Dunant was joint recipient of the first Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 1901.