Explore an interactive timeline of the most important moments in the WEF’s history

The World Economic Forum works year-round

Beyond its annual Davos meeting, the World Economic Forum operates year-round through 11 centers that convene governments, corporations, and experts to coordinate initiatives around topics such as AI, cybersecurity, energy, climate change, health, finance, trade, geopolitics, and emerging technologies.

Go behind the scenes of Davos with ‘60 Minutes’

In 2010, "60 Minutes" gained rare, near-unprecedented access to the World Economic Forum, with Scott Pelley roaming Davos’ exclusive meetings and elite spaces. See how global power brokers mingle, negotiate, and shape agendas offstage at the event.

Meet Klaus Schwab, the founder and driving force behind Davos

Klaus Schwab founded the World Economic Forum in 1971 and spent five decades promoting stakeholder capitalism and cross-sector cooperation among elites. Under his leadership, Davos became a hub for global power brokers. Schwab stepped down from the role in April 2025 amid accusations of misconduct.

The WEF’s ‘Davos Manifesto’ is a set of guiding principles for the event

In 2020, these principles were updated for the first time in more than 40 years to include “stakeholder capitalism,” the idea that a company’s purpose is “to engage all its stakeholders in shared and sustained value creation.”

An interactive timeline of history's famous figures

The past few millennia of humankind have produced numerous figures who left their mark on culture and society in their respective era. This interactive timeline from data visualization expert Jan Willem pulls data from Wikipedia to illustrate history's most important people relative to their prominence in modern-day thought.

Davos has been home to many pivotal moments in international diplomacy

Davos provides a forum for unlikely meetings: FW de Klerk met with Nelson Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi during South Africa’s transition from apartheid, North and South Korea held their first-ever ministerial talks, and East and West German leaders discussed reunification.

Read the WEF’s Global Risks Report for 2025

The Global Risks Report is the World Economic Forum’s annual assessment of the most pressing threats facing the world. The 2025 edition highlights declining global optimism, deepening geopolitical and economic tensions, and rising social fragmentation across societies.

The WEF’s Edison Alliance connected more than 1 billion people to digital services

By 2024, the World Economic Forum-backed Edison Alliance had delivered digital connectivity and access to financial, healthcare, and education services to more than 1 billion people, using public-private partnerships across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US.

Key milestones in the history of the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization, a UN agency founded in 1948, was first proposed at the 1945 UN Conference to coordinate global health efforts. This interactive timeline marks the WHO’s 75th anniversary with major public health milestones.

Travel through deep time with this interactive Earth

Explore key moments in Earth’s transformative history as continents drift and climate fluctuates over 4.6 billion years. The Smithsonian presents a series of interactive snapshots of the earth. From its toddler years during the Hadean period, when its surface was mostly molten, to the mostly unidentifiable landmasses of the future earth, 100 million years from now.

Albert Einstein taught courses in Davos

This silent video from the 1920s shows footage of Einstein at Davos. The famous scientist spent time there, delivering public lectures on his theory of relativity as part of the town’s university courses.

The history of the World Trade Organization

This episode of the "Brettonomics with Nancy Jackson" podcast explores the history of the WTO and its predecessor, the GATT, revealing the key people, negotiations, and decisions that shaped today's international trade rules.

Explore a multimedia timeline of Communism’s global rise and collapse

This timeline from The Washington Post traces the spread of Communism—from revolutions and Cold War flashpoints to movements in China, Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam—using archival photos and key moments to chart the ideology’s dramatic ascent and worldwide decline.

100 ways the Great War changed the world

What was the point of WWI? What impacts did it have? How has it influenced life today? Click through this Wall Street Journal photo gallery to find out.

A global history of women’s rights, in 3 minutes

This video presents a succinct overview of the history of women’s rights. As a global community, we have witnessed widespread suffrage campaigns, the rise of #MeToo, and increasing digital activism. Noteworthy women, grassroots movements, and...

1440 Explores: The Evolution of the US Presidency

1440 traces how the presidency transformed from the limited office envisioned by the Founders into today's powerful institution—examining how presidents like FDR and Nixon reshaped executive authority.

Taiwan's economic history, analyzed

See how the global economic power evolved from the colonial period to today, including charts and graphs highlighting China's progress, especially in recent decades.

Relive the biggest swings in the Dow’s history

From the 1929 crash to the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020, this piece spotlights five of the most dramatic single-day moves in the Dow’s 125-year history.

Trace the rise of oil: from early drilling to today’s global power

This animated map video vividly illustrates how petroleum shaped global politics and industry—from 18th-century uses and 19th-century drilling booms in North America to today’s OPEC strategies, shale revolution, and geopolitical oil influence.

A map of the world's changing tree cover

As many of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction, keep track of the growth and decline of trees on Earth with this interactive map. Witness the state of forests worldwide by analyzing tree cover change on GFW’s interactive global forest map using satellite data. Learn about deforestation rates and other land use practices, forest fires, forest communities, biodiversity, and much more.

A conversation with Wikipedia’s cofounder

In the early 2000s, the nonprofit free encyclopedia Wikipedia launched and became one of the most visited sites on the internet. This lengthy interview with cofounder Jimmy Wales provides insight into how the encyclopedia originated, how it is funded, its plans for the future, and a number of other facts about the hugely influential resource.

Take a virtual tour through the White House interior

This immersive 360° tour from the White House Historical Association lets you explore key rooms and see historical details not visible during in-person visits.

Explore the countries with a federal system—and see how they work

This resource from the Forum of Federations catalogs the world's federal countries. It provides background information on each, including the emergence of federalism, the division of power, and the practical interaction between national and regional governments.

Explore 100 years of technological innovation at IFA Berlin

This retrospective highlights IFA Berlin’s century of innovation, including the unveiling of the world’s first tape recorder in 1935, the launch of color TV in West Berlin in 1967, and the first public look at HD TV in 1985.

A timeline of the Rockefeller family

The Rockefeller family timeline (as it relates to the business world, at least) starts in 1839 with John D. Rockefeller’s birth. In the nearly 200 years since, his offspring have gotten involved in everything from the Watergate scandal to the McCormick & Company spice business.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

See how Ebola tore through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in 2014-2016.

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'