A short timeline
- 11907 — Brownsea Island experimental camp, the first Scout camp.
- 21908 — Scouting for Boys published; the movement takes off.
- 31910s — Scouting spreads internationally; national organizations form (including the BSA in 1910).
- 41920 — the first World Scout Jamboree (London).
- 5Today — the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM): 170+ national organizations, tens of millions of members; jamborees roughly every four years.
How it grew
- A book that spread the idea — Scouting for Boys (1908) was an immediate hit, widely translated, and has sold well over 100 million copies.
- A worldwide movement — WOSM is a confederation of more than 170 national Scout organizations with tens of millions of members across most of the world's countries (exact figures vary by source).
- The jamboree tradition — Baden-Powell's dream of scouts of all nations gathering, first held in London in 1920 and roughly every four years since.
Notes
- Global and diverse — Scouting spans most countries and many cultures; the movement's unity across differences is part of its story.
- Figures vary by source — treat membership and copies-sold numbers as approximate; confirm the current WOSM figures at the source.
Going deeper
- One camp, a worldwide movement. Brownsea Island (1907), about 20 boys — the start of a movement now spanning most of the world.
- A book that changed everything. Scouting for Boys (1908) launched Scouting almost overnight.
- Jamborees since 1920. B-P's dream of scouts of all nations meeting became the World Scout Jamboree — still held roughly every four years.
Official source
Scouting's history — World Organization of the Scout Movement →Founding facts are from WOSM and Scouting America. Exact membership figures and copies-sold vary by source — confirm the current numbers at the source. (Wikipedia is not used for claims.)