June 30 is the International Day of Parliamentarism

On May 23, 2018 the United Nations General Assembly declared June 30 the International Day of Parliamentarism.
The oldest parliament is considered to be Iceland’s Althing, established in the 10th century, although various forms of representation existed in back in ancient times.
Currently, there are two forms of this representative body of the legislature: unicameral and bicameral parliaments.
According to the UN, 79 of its 193 Member States have a bicameral system, and 114 have a unicameral one. The world’s 272 chambers have about 46,000 members in total. Women represent 25 per cent of the members of the world’s parliament, and 28.1 per cent of parliament members are under 45.
Russia is one of the initiators of the establishment of the International Day of Parliamentarism. The idea belongs to Valentina Matvienko, Chairwoman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. It was first voiced and approved at a session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, where an appeal to the Inter-Parliamentary Union was drafted.
In October 2017, at a regular session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in Tavrichesky Palace in St Petersburg – the headquarters of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly – the IPU approved the initiative and drafted an appeal to the UN General Assembly which adopted a corresponding resolution on May 23, 2018.
More than one hundred states co-sponsored the resolution.