The IOC celebrates 23 June each year as Olympic Day. It commemorates 23 June 1894 which was the day that the Modern Olympic Games were revived and the International Olympic Committee founded by Pierre, Baron de Coubertin at the conference at the Sorbonne. The IOC began celebrating Olympic Day after it was proposed at the 1947 IOC Session by Czechoslovak IOC Member Josef Gruss. Formal recognition came at the IOC Session in Sankt Moritz in January 1948. The 1978 edition of the Olympic Charter first recommended that all NOCs celebrate Olympic Day to promote the Olympic Movement.
In 1948 the IOC and then President Sigfrid Edström recommended that each National Olympic Committee should organize events each year, noting, “We have come here today to celebrate the Olympic Day of the World. During this month thousands of young men and women are gathered in different cities to express their interest in the Olympic Movement and the development of physical culture.”
