Pierre, baron de Coubertin (1863–1937), is usually credited as the person most responsible for starting the modern Olympic Games. He was a French educator who, at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris, launched a series of congresses on physical education and international sport that coincided with inspiring new archaeological finds from Olympia. He made a public call for an Olympic revival at one of these congresses in 1892, which initially fell on deaf ears. He persevered, and in 1894 a second Sorbonne congress resolved to hold an international Olympic Games in Athens, which took place in 1896. He was a founding member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and served as its president from 1896 to 1925.