At the midpoint of the twentieth century there were no organizations devoted solely to stroke, and no stroke-oriented journals. In 1954, the American Heart Association (AHA) sponsored a cerebrovascular disease meeting held in Princeton, New Jersey. The attendees at this first conference were mostly internists and cardiologists. A second conference was held in January 1957. The preface to the Second Conference on Cerebrovascular Diseases noted that “because of the massive size of the subject, certain facets were not fully covered in the first meeting. For this reason and, as research activity in cerebral vascular disease has intensified, it was deemed wise to make plans for a second conference” [1].