What's in a name?
At an intergovernmental meeting of UNESCO in Paris in December 1951, the first resolution concerning the establishment of a European Council for Nuclear Research (in French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) was adopted.
Two months later, an agreement was signed establishing the provisional Council – the acronym CERN was born.
This agreement gave the Council 18 months to produce the formal CERN Convention.
Today, our understanding of matter goes much deeper than the nucleus, and CERN's main area of research is particle physics. Because of this, the laboratory operated by CERN is often referred to as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.
And so it begins
In June 1953, the final draft of the CERN Convention was agreed upon and signed by 12 new Member States. It laid out the ways Member States would contribute to CERN's budget, as well as early indications of CERN's ethos and organisation -- from adopting a policy of open access, to CERN's internal structure being divided into Directorates (today, CERN's size means that these Directorates are sub-divided into departments and then, in turn, groups and sections).
Signing the convention led to a huge swell in momentum, and very quickly staff were hired, architects were brought in and plans were drawn up.
In July 1955, Felix Bloch, CERN's Director-General, laid the first foundation stone.
Since then, CERN has more than fulfilled the early plans of those few optimistic, scientists who dreamt of creating an international laboratory to make great strides in fundamental research and stretch the limits of our technology and imaginations.