A Timeline of the History of Western Medicine, Disease, and Public Health II

A Brief History

This article presents A Timeline of the History of Western Medicine, Disease, and Public Health II (History 2716) from 1700 to the present at Columbus State Community College.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event.

Digging Deeper

I. A Timeline of the History of Western Medicine, Disease, and Public Health I

1. Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt.
2. On June 11, 323 BC, one of History’s greatest conquerors and generals died at the age of 32, not on the battlefield where he had spent so much time putting his life in danger, but in bed in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon.
3. On July 12 or 13, 100 B.C., Julius Caesar was born by what many believe to have been the first Caesarian section.
4. On July 12 or 13, 100 BC, the world welcomed baby Gaius Julius Caesar into the world, the man the month of July is named after that would become dictator of Rome (but not Emperor; that came after him).
5. In approximately the 11^th century A.D., an Ethiopian goatherd realized that coffee beans could serve as a pick-me-up.
6. Today, as the United States and the rest of the world continues to be ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, we look back to a previous pandemic of enormously greater proportions, the infamous Black Death of Bubonic Plague that ravaged much of the world in the 14^th Century.
7. On February 14, 1349, the city of Strasbourg, France was the scene of a St. Valentine’s Day massacre 150 times worse than the more famous Chicago incident!
8. On August 24, 1349, 6,000 Jews were massacred in Mainz, Germany by being burned alive.
9. On August 24, 1349, the Black Death broke out in the Prussian town of Elbing in Northern Germany.
10. On June 24, 1374, the German city of Aachen experienced a sudden outbreak of St. John’s Dance, a bizarre condition where masses of people experience hallucinations, jump and twitch (dance) until they fell from exhaustion!
11. On July 16, 1439, the Parliament of King Henry VI of England issued a proclamation banning kissing.
12. On June 1, 1495, a Dominican Friar of the Stirling house in Scotland named John Cor is the first person named in a written reference to Scotch Whisky, while the first known written reference to Scotch dates from 1494.
13. On April 23, 1516, the region of Bavaria, a region world famous for their wonderful beer, signed on to the Reinheitsgebot, the laws in German and former Holy Roman Empire districts that regulate the ingredients and purity of beer.
14. On November 20, 1518, Sir Marmaduke Constable, a Tudor Era English courtier and soldier, died in a most unusual way.
15. On October 27, 1553, a Spanish scientist versed in many disciplines, Michael Servetus, was burned at the stake for heresy.
16. On June 30, 1559, King Henry II of France engaged in a jousting tournament when his opponent’s lance pierced the face guard of Henry’s helmet, sending splinters into his face, eye, and brain.
17. In William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet (written in the 1590s), the titular character Juliet asks, “What’s in a name?”
18. On June 15, 1667, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to King Louis XIV, performed the first human blood transfusion.
19. On September 17, 1683, Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek presented a paper to the Royal Society (The President, Council and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge) containing a description of the first scientific recognition of microbes/protozoa, a living thing he referred to as “animalcules” (single celled organisms).
20. From 1543 to 1687, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe was an irreversible break with the natural philosophy that had preceded it, fundamentally changing how the natural world was investigated and understood.
21. On October 26, 1689, Austrian General Piccolomini burned down the Macedonian city of Skopje to prevent the spread of cholera.
22. In 1691, Sir Francis Nicholson, the governor of Virginia, organized competitions for the “better sort of Virginians onely who are Batchelors,” and he offered prizes “to be shot for, wrastled, played at backswords, & Run for by Horse and foott.”
23. On September 19, 1692, Giles Corey, age 81, became a footnote in the history of America by becoming the first and only man to be “pressed” to death during the infamous Salem Witch Trials.

II. A Timeline of the History of Western Medicine, Disease, and Public Health II

1. On January 31, 1747, the London Lock Hospital opened as the first clinic specifically for the treatment of venereal diseases!
2. On August 4^th, 1761, the first veterinary school of medicine was founded by Claude Bourgelat in Lyon, France.
3. On October 12, 1773, Eastern State Hospital was established, the first insane asylum in what is now the United States.
4. In 1784, the earliest recorded mention of Merlot (under the synonym of Merlau) appeared in the notes of a local Bordeaux official who labeled wine made from the grape in the Libournais region as one of the area’s best.
5. On June 15, 1785, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier (say that 10 times fast!) and his companion, Pierre Romain became the first people to die in an aircraft accident when the  hot air balloon they were flying crashed in an attempt to cross the English Channel.
6. On November 30, 1786, Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo I of The Grand Duchy of Tuscany initiated the first ban on capital punishment of any modern state.
7. On April 25, 1792, a major step in the history of execution devices was made when a “highwayman” (robber) became the first victim of the guillotine.
8. On April 25, 1792, the guillotine was served its first victim.
9. On May 8, 1794, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the man generally regarded as the Father of Modern Chemistry, was put to death on the guillotine during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution.
10. On May 14, 1796, English scientist Edward Jenner used pus scraped from a cowpox pustule to inoculate his gardener’s son, the first ever vaccine used.
11. On March 7, 1799, French General Napoleon Bonaparte successfully captured the city of Jaffa in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
12. On September 6, 1803, pioneering atomic theorist John Dalton of England first assigned symbols to represent atoms of various elements.
13. From August 29-30, 1813, The Battle of Kulm was fought near the town Kulm (Chlumec) and the village Přestanov in northern Bohemia, during the War of the Sixth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars.
14. In 1816, the stethoscope was invented in France by René Laennec at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris.
15. On May 5, 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte, erstwhile Emperor of the French died on the lonely island of St. Helena, whispering his last word, Josephine.
16. On June 6, 1822, a Canadian fur trapper “voyageur” was accidentally shot in the stomach with a musket, leaving him with a hole that healed open, leading to extensive study of the human digestive tract.
17. On December 4, 1829, the British Governor-General Lord William Bentinck, representative of the King of the United Kingdom in India, made a ruling that was vehemently opposed by local Indian people (presumably men) that made the traditional practice of suttee (also known as sati) illegal.
18. On November 27, 1835, two Englishmen were hanged for the crime of sodomy (Section 15, Offences Against the Person Act of 1828) and a third man was convicted of being an accessory, receiving a sentence of 14 years “penal transportation.”
19. On June 3, 1839, Chinese agents under Lin Zexu (various spellings) seized an incredible 1,210 ton cache of opium (2.66 million pounds, or 1.2 million kilos), later destroying the drug.
20. On March 30, 1842, Dr. Crawford Long, an American surgeon, made the first known use of ether as a general anesthetic.
21. On September 13, 1848, a Vermont railroad worker suffered a bizarre injury when a 3-foot metal rod went right through his head and proceeded to land 80 feet away.
22. On September 13, 1848, a railroad worker was skewered with an iron rod over an inch in diameter.
23. On August 14, 1851, John Henry Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia.
24. On August 31, 1854, a seminal moment in the history of illness and scientific application of anti-disease efforts struck the Broad Street area of Soho, London, England, when a severe cholera outbreak began.
25. On June 15, 1858, Chancellor of the Exchequer Benjamin Disraeli called the Thames River in London, England, a “Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors.”
26. On August 20, 1858, naturalist Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, the change of organisms over time through mutation and natural selection, in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London.
27. On February 19, 1859, New York Congressman Daniel E. Sickles made history as the first person acquitted by reason of “temporary insanity.”
28. On April 26, 1859, Daniel Sickles, Congressman, Army general, and diplomat, became the first person to successfully use the “temporary insanity” defense to beat a murder rap.
29. On June 3, 1861, in the first organized land battle (barely a battle in reality) of the American Civil War, the Union Army with 3,000 men routed an untrained force of 800 Confederate volunteers in what it now West Virginia at Philippi, a small town that today has only about 3,000 residents.
30. On April 20, 1862, French scientists Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard proved that Aristotle was wrong!
31. On May 2, 1863, the Confederate States of America lost their best or second best general, because they shot him!
32. On May 12, 1864, as part of the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (Virginia) Union and Confederate forces fought in the “Bloody Angle” resulting in thousands of casualties on both sides, just part of what was by far the bloodiest and most horrific war in American history.
33. On March 22, 1872, the State of Illinois became the first state to enact a law requiring equal treatment of men and women in hiring.
34. On August 22, 1880, The London Telegraph published an allegedly true story claiming that, believe it or not, people can be buried alive and still survive!
35. On May 21, 1881, Clara Barton established the American Red Cross in Washington, DC.
36. On May 30, 1883, panicked public people pushed, prodded, poked, and pummeled each other in a mad dash to get away from the Brooklyn Bridge when an unfounded rumor circulated that collapse was imminent.
37. On January 18, 1884, Welsh physician Dr. William Price attempted to cremate the remains of his infant son, Jesus Christ Price, who had died of natural causes at the age of 5 months.
38. On July 6, 1885, French scientist Louis Pasteur tested his vaccine against Rabies on a boy that had been bitten by a rabid dog.
39. On June 13, 1893, President Grover Cleveland was only a few months into his second term when he went to his doctor to complain of soreness and a rough patch in his mouth.
40. On March 12, 1894, Coca-Cola, the preeminent soft drink on the planet, was first bottled and sold in Vicksburg, Mississippi by Joseph Beidenharn, a soda fountain operator who owned a candy store.
41. On November 8, 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen (or Röntgen) discovered what has become known as X-Rays.
42. On December 28, 1895, the world of medicine and airport security were forever changed when William Roentgen published his paper describing the production of X-rays.
43. On December 21, 1898, the chemical element radium (Ra) was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie who had isolated it from uranium.
44. On March 6, 1899, the German chemical and pharmaceutical firm, Bayer AG, (the people that brought us “Heroin”) trademarked perhaps their greatest product, and perhaps the greatest medicine ever invented, Aspirin.
45. On November 13, 1901, a British lifeboat crew answered the distress flares of a small ship in peril off the coast of Norfolk, England, only to suffer terrible hardships in attempting to launch their lifeboat from shore to go to the sailors in peril.
46. On August 25, 1904, our greatest ice cream sundae was born, the invention of pharmacist apprentice David Strickler in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
47. On February 20, 1905, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states have the authority to require mandatory vaccinations against disease, well over a century before the controversy over the Covid vaccine in 2020 and 2021.
48. On May 27, 1907, in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the city by the bay came down with an epidemic of Bubonic Plague, the same plague responsible for the infamous “Black Death” in earlier centuries.
49. On December 10, 1907, a long running feud between the medical community and anti-vivisectionist activists boiled over into the worst of the riots and disturbances over the statue of a dog!
50. On January 21, 1908, the New York City Board of Alderman passed the Sullivan Ordinance, a law that banned women from smoking in any public establishment.
51. On October 22, 1910, a murderer named Hawley Crippen became the first person captured via the help of radio to be convicted of a crime.
52. On April 2, 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted their first ever national census.
53. Although World War I (1914-1918) was pretty much rudimentary in terms of weapons and weaponry, so to say, you would still expect its deadliest weapon to be a firearm – for example, a sniper rifle or even a pistol; however, a couple of web searches will show you that, among the Gewehr and the Bergmann, you can also find a primitive weapon – namely the German Flechette. It is also known as the Aerial Dart.
54. On November 15, 1914, the pre-National Football League professional football world was saddened by the death of a seasoned pro, Center Harry Turner of the Canton Professionals (now there is a catchy name) of the Ohio League.
55. On January 31, 1915, the German Army, in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases, launched 18,000 artillery shells containing xylyl bromide tear gas against Russian positions, the first truly large scale use of poison gas in combat.
56. On March 27, 1915, the woman history has come to know as Typhoid Mary was placed into involuntary quarantine for the rest of her life!
57. On April 22, 1915, the Imperial German Army used chlorine gas in large quantities for the first time at Ypres, in Belgium, targeting French colonial troops.
58. On October 16, 1916, Margaret Sanger (nee Higgins), nurse, writer, and sexual educator opened the first family planning (birth control) clinic in the United States.
59. On November 21, 1916, in the waters of the Aegean Sea near the Island of Kea, the British hospital ship HMHS Britannic struck a naval mine and sank, becoming the largest vessel sunk during World War I.
60. On April 13, 1917, Diamond Jim Brady died at the age of 60, not surprisingly of a heart attack.
61. In 1918, Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories by American physician and columnist Lulu Hunt Peters (1873–1930) became the first weight-loss book to promote calorie counting and the first weight-loss book to become a bestseller.
62. On November 11, 1918, a full century ago, an armistice took effect ending the fighting of World War I.
63. On October 2, 1919, First Lady of the United States (U.S.), Edith Wilson, the wife of President Woodrow Wilson, unofficially ran the U.S. government following her husband’s (then President Woodrow Wilson’s) life-changing stroke.
64. On November 23, 1921, Warren Harding signed a law to prohibit doctors from prescribing alcoholic beverages to patients, closing a loophole in the 18^th Amendment, which since 1920 had outlawed alcoholic beverages in the US.
65. On November 13, 1922, the United States Supreme Court decision called Zucht v. King, upheld the discretion that allowed a Texas school board to require mandatory vaccination of school children against smallpox.
66. On April 15, 1923, the hormone insulin became widely available for the treatment of diabetes.
67. On August 27, 1927, five steadfast women in Canada petitioned the Supreme Court of Canada to clarify if the word “persons” in the British North America Act included women.
68. On April 26, 1933, the Nazi secret police force known as the Gestapo was founded.
69. On July 14, 1933, the Nazi Party that had just taken power in Germany began a program of eugenics with their institution of The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.
70. On April 21, 1934, one of the most famous photographs in history was alleged to have been taken by a London gynecologist!
71. On April 21, 1934, one of the most famous photographs in history was alleged to have been taken by a London gynecologist!  (NOTE: The link in the date for this entry leads to a different article than the other mention to this same event above.)
72. On May 28, 1934, outside the village of Corbeil, Ontario, the first human quintuplets known to have survived past infancy were born.
73. On May 28, 1934, the famous Dionne Quints (quintuplets) were born in an unincorporated rural area of Ontario, Canada, making them instant celebrities.
74. On January 24, 1935, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey, introduced the world to the convenience of beer in cans.
75. On February 2, 1935, Leonarde “Nard” Keeler testified about polygraph evidence in a Wisconsin courtroom at a trial of 2 men for assault, the first use of the polygraph, often simply called “the lie detector,” in court.
76. In August 1935, the chemical synthesis of testosterone from cholesterol was achieved by German biochemist Adolf Butenandt (1903–1995) and G. Hanisch.
77. On May 18, 1936, Sada Abe, a Japanese prostitute, strangled her lover and cut his genitals off, carrying them around in her purse for three days before she was caught.
78. On May 20, 1936, Japanese prostitute Sada Abe was confronted by police at the inn where she was staying, showing them her lover’s genitals as proof of her identification!
79. On November 16, 1938, the psychedelic drug Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) that has since become known as “acid” was first synthesized by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofman (not to be confused with Abbie Hoffman, the social radical).
80. On November 16, 1938, the psychedelic drug LSD was fist synthesized in Basel, Switzerland by scientist Albert Hofmann, a genius not to be confused with 1960’s American radical Abbie Hoffman.
81. On December 16, 1938, world famous dictator and villain Adolf Hitler directed his Nazi German Empire (Reich) to issue a new medal, one only for mothers of German ethnicity living within Germany or later within other areas incorporated into the Reich.
82. On May 14, 1939, in Peru, 5 ½ year old Lina Medina became the youngest documented human mother in history.
83. On June 12, 1939, for the first time production began on a horror film filmed in “three strip” Technicolor.
84. In October 1939, German scientist Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt won the Noble Prize in Chemistry for his work on sex hormones, while Croatian-Swiss scientist Leopold Ruzicka co-won for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes.
85. In 1940, cannabidiol (CBD) was first studied from Minnesota wild hemp and Egyptian Cannabis indica resin.
86. Discovered in 1940, cannabidiol, or CBD as it is called in layman’s terms, could be exactly what you need to treat certain inflammatory conditions.
87. On September 3, 1941, the first experiments using an insecticide which had been adapted to kill people were conducted at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
88. On December 8, 1941, the USA formally entered World War II, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, by declaring war against Japan.
89. On January 5, 1943, African American agricultural scientist George Washington Carver died at the age of 79 after a fall.
90. On April 19, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman became the first known person to ever dose himself with the hallucinogenic drug LSD, after previously having discovered the psychedelic properties of the substance only 3 days earlier.
91. On May 14, 1943, the Australian hospital ship AHS Centaur was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese Imperial Navy submarine I-177.
92. On October 19, 1943, the antibiotic drug, Streptomycin, was isolated by researchers at the esteemed Rutgers University.
93. On June 16, 1944, 14 year old George Stinney was executed in the electric chair by the State of South Carolina, giving him the distinction of being the youngest American executed in the 20th Century.
94. On August 6, 1945, near end of World War II, a modified Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber dropped a uranium gun-type (“Little Boy”) bomb on Hiroshima.
95. On July 5, 1946, the bikini swimsuit went on sale after being debuted at the Molitor Pool of Paris, France.
96. On October 1, 1946, Dr. Lancelot Ware and Roland Berrill established an organization in Caythorpe (Lincolnshire), England called Mensa International.
97. On December 9, 1946, the “Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” began with the “Doctors’ Trial,” prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
98. On October 28, 1948, Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for his work in 1939 demonstrating the effectiveness of DDT as an insecticide.
99. On November 1, 1951, the U.S. military conducted Operation Buster-Jangle in which U.S. soldiers were exposed to atomic explosions in Nevada so that the effects could be studied.
100. On November 1, 1951, the US Army conducted nuclear tests in the Nevada desert that included a diabolical exercise in which 6,500 US Army troops were exposed to the effects of a nearby nuclear detonation and its associated radiation.
101. On December 5, 1952, the people of London, England found out the hard way that smog is no joke.
102. Since their invention by Canadian George Klein in 1953 to assist injured veterans after after World War II, electric wheelchairs revolutionized the world of mobility devices by offering users more independence and options with flexibility and travel.
103. On January 13, 1953, an article appeared in the Soviet newspaper, Pravda (which means “truth” in Russian, obviously some kind of joke…) that accused a large number of Jewish doctors in the USSR of plotting to poison top Soviet communist officials.
104. On March 1, 1953, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin suffered an alleged stroke that led to his death on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74.
105. On April 13, 1953, Director of the CIA, Allen Dulles signed the order authorizing Project MKUltra, research into how to use mind control drugs against Soviet and Chinese targets during the Cold War.
106. On April 13, 1953, the US Central Intelligence Agency launched Project MKULTRA, attempting to learn how to use drugs and other techniques for the purpose of mind control.
107. On February 23, 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against the Polio virus took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
108. On April 12, 1955, the Polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was declared safe and effective for use in the United States, ending the epidemic that killed or crippled mass numbers of children in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.
109. On October 29, 1955, the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk struck a mine in Sevastopol Harbor and sank, taking the lives of 608 crewmen.
110. On December 19, 1956, Dr. John Bodkins Adams was accused of murdering 160 (or more!) of his patients!
111. On August 25, 1958, the first ever publicly marketed instant noodle meal called Chikin Ramen was sold by Nissin Foods, a Japanese food company.
112. On March 22, 1960, Scientists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Labs in New Jersey patented their invention of the LASER, a device that concentrates and focuses visible light that today we find useful in a myriad of applications.
113. On May 9, 1960, the Searle manufactured drug, Enovid, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States as a birth control measure, making Enovid the first oral contraceptive pill approved for use by any nation.
114. On November 4, 1960, Dr. Jane Goodall observed Chimpanzees creating and using tools, behavior previously believed to be limited to human beings.
115. On August 10, 1961, the US began Operation Ranch Hand, a ten year program of using chemical herbicides against the flora of Vietnam and surrounding countries to both deprive the Viet Cong of food crops and of foliage for cover.
116. On August 7, 1962, a reviewer from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, was recognized by President John F. Kennedy with the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service.
117. On September 27, 1962, the book, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson was published.
118. On January 11, 1964, U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry released a landmark report finally confirming what millions of people had suspected all along: that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and a host of other deadly health problems.
119. On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing the Medicare and Medicaid programs the American people have come to take for granted.
120. On June 30, 1966, the Women’s Rights movement took a giant leap forward when the National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded by 28 women’s rights activists.
121. On March 17, 1968, the US Army proved just how dangerous it is to play with weapons of “maaaass” destruction!
122. On July 20, 1968, the first International Special Olympics for intellectually challenged people was held in Chicago’s Soldier Field.
123. On April 4, 1969, Dr. Denton Cooley performed surgery to implant the first artificial (temporary) heart in history!
124. On December 30, 1970, former heavyweight boxing champion Charles L. “Sonny” Liston lay dead on the bedroom floor of his Las Vegas home.
125. On December 13, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard arguments in a lawsuit by Norma McCorvey (known as “Jane Roe” for the purposes of the lawsuit) against the Dallas County (Texas) Attorney Henry Wade in the landmark American court case about the subject of a woman’s right to seek an abortion, ending an unwanted pregnancy.
126. On January 4, 1972, the famous Old Bailey court in London England witnessed the first appointment of a female judge when Rose Heilbron was allowed to sit on the bench.
127. On March 22, 1972, the US Supreme Court decided that unmarried Americans were allowed to have sex!
128. On December 15, 1973, with a vote of 13-0, the American Psychiatric Association agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders.
129. On December 15, 1973, with a vote of 13-0, the American Psychiatric Association agreed to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders.  (NOTE: The link in the date for this entry leads to a different article than the other mention to this same event above.)
130. On August 30, 1974, the third World Population Conference was held in Bucharest, Romania.
131. On September 10, 1977, Tunisian French landscaper and pimp, Hamida Djandoubi, became the last person executed by guillotine in France, and the last person executed for a crime in Western Europe.
132. On March 28, 1978, the US Supreme Court rendered a decision that many would think defied reason!
133. On August 7, 1978, President Jimmy Carter recognized the toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently into a residential area canal as a federal emergency.
134. On September 7, 1978, a Bulgarian secret agent assassinated Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov, as the unfortunate man was strolling across the Waterloo Bridge in London.
135. In November 1979, Wendy’s became the first fast-food chain to introduce the salad bar, giving fast-food seeking patrons seeking a healthier option than was previously available.
136. On December 9, 1979, history was made when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the smallpox virus in nature had been made extinct.
137. In the 1980s, first genital herpes and then AIDS emerged into the public consciousness as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that could not be cured by modern medicine.
138. On June 27, 1980, President Jimmy Carter authorized Helen Keller Day to commemorate her 100th birthday.
139. On June 5, 1981, The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reported on 5 cases of a rare form of pneumonia, a form only seen in people with compromised immune systems.
140. On September 29, 1982, the first of seven victims of intentionally-contaminated Tylenol died.
141. On September 30, 1982, six unsuspecting people took Tylenol brand acetaminophen capsules that had been filled with potassium cyanide, killing those unfortunates nearly instantly.
142. On October 14, 1982, President Ronald Reagan declared a “War on Drugs,” meaning of course a war against illegal drugs.
143. On December 2, 1982, medical history was made when Barney Clark, a retired dentist, received a Jarvik 7 artificial heart at the University of Utah, the first time an artificial heart was implanted meant as a permanent solution and not just a temporary spot holder until a viable heart for transplant could be found.
144. On December 7, 1982, the State of Texas executed convicted murderer Charles Brooks, Jr. by lethal injection, the first such execution in US history.
145. On February 4, 1983, the World was shocked to hear that popular 32 year old singer Karen Carpenter had died, due to complications from anorexia nervosa.
146. On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H.
147. On May 17, 1983, the US government was obligated to release information due to a newspaper’s Freedom of Information Act request about the largest Mercury pollution source in history, the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, home of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, nuclear facilities first constructed during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project.
148. On May 20, 1983, two separate groups of researchers published their research that indicated AIDS was caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Science Magazine.
149. On April 4, 1984, President Ronald Reagan made a public plea to the world to ban chemical weapons.
150. On July 17, 1984, President Reagan signed The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, requiring all states to raise the legal age for buying alcoholic beverages from 18 to 21.
151. On June 6, 1985, authorities in Embu, Brazil opened the grave of a person purported to be “Wolfgang Gerhard,” in order to determine the true identity of the person buried under that name.  Investigation proved the actual body to be that of Dr. Josef Mengele, in infamous Nazi doctor that terrorized innocent people at the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland during World War II, earning Mengele the terrible moniker, “The Angel of Death.”
152. On October 1, 1985, the United States began celebrating National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, founded by The American Cancer Society and Imperial Chemical Industries (later to become AstraZeneca).
153. On June 28, 1987, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Force became the first military force in history to purposely target civilians with chemical weapons when they attacked the town of Sardasht, Iran with “mustard” gas.
154. On July 11, 1987, the human population of the Earth hit 5 billion, known appropriately as “5 Billion Day.”
155. On September 13, 1987, two thieves took advantage of a guard being absent from an abandoned Brazilian hospital site to help themselves to whatever they could scavenge.
156. On November 18, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law legislation (Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988) that made certain drug trafficking offenses punishable by the death penalty, a sharp escalation of the “War on Drugs.”
157. In 1989, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a business and self-help book, was first published.
158. On April 16, 1990, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan physician later to gain the sobriquet, “Dr. Death,” assisted in his first physician assisted suicide when he assisted a 54 year old woman that had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in the act of taking her own life.
159. On May 17, 1990, homosexual people around the world breathed a sigh of relief and vindication when the General Assembly of the World Health Organization ruled that homosexuality would no longer be considered a mental illness, paving the way for the culture shaking changes that have followed in the next 26 years.
160. On May 22, 1990, U.S. Patent 4,927,855 was issued to Laboratoire L. Lafon, covering the chemical compound modafinil, a medication to treat sleepiness due to narcolepsy, shift work sleep disorder, or obstructive sleep apnea.
161. On September 19, 1991, the mummified body of a man that lived around 3350 to 3105 BC was discovered in the Ötztal Alps between Austria and Italy.
162. On January 22, 1992, NASA launched mission STS-42, the space shuttle Discovery, into space with a crew that included Ukrainian Canadian Dr. Roberta Bondar, a neurologist.
163. On July 7, 1992, the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York, ruled that women in that state have every bit as much a right to go bare breasted as men do.
164. On July 22, 1992, Drug Lord Pablo Escobar of Columbia escaped from his (luxury) prison.
165. On April 30, 1993, Hungarian (by ancestry) tennis star, Monica Seles, was stabbed in the back by a fan obsessed with Steffi Graf, another well known female tennis star.
166. On April 30, 1993, tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by a “fan” obsessed with rival women’s tennis star Stefi Graf.
167. On May 24, 1993, Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, a Mexican Roman Catholic archbishop of the see of Guadalajara, was gunned down by 14 bullets while at the Guadalajara International Airport, allegedly because he was mistaken for drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán by rival drug cartel gunmen out to assassinate El Chapo.
168. On November 11, 1993, a sculpture honoring the women that served in the Vietnam War was dedicated at the site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
169. On March 22, 1995, Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov made it back to Earth after spending a record 437 days and 18 hours in space.
170. On September 22, 1995, a United States Air Force Boeing E-3B Sentry (AWACS, early warning spy in the sky type aircraft) flew into a flock of birds immediately after taking off from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, putting two of the four jet engines out of commission and causing a crash of the big plane, killing all 24 crewmen aboard.
171. On March 25, 1996, the European Union banned the import of beef and beef byproducts from Britain due to an outbreak of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as “Mad Cow Disease.”
172. On July 5, 1996, a sheep named Dolly was born, the product of a cloning experiment making her the first ever mammal to be cloned. Using an adult somatic cell from one sheep, an egg cell from another sheep, and the resulting embryo implanted in the womb of a third sheep saw baby Dolly carried to term.
173. On September 25, 1996, the last of the Magdalene asylums for prostitutes closed.
174. On June 28, 1997,  shocked referee Mills Lane stopped the heavyweight championship fight between “Iron Mike” Tyson and Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield because Tyson had bit off a chunk of Holyfield’s ear.
175. On July 10, 1997, British scientists in London conducted DNA tests on a Neanderthal skeleton which showed the likelihood of a common ancestor for all men having originated in Africa, perhaps 200,000 years ago.
176. On July 10, 1997, British scientists in London, England, reported that the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton gave credibility to the “Out of Africa” theory of human origins, including the likelihood of an “Eve” ancestress to all modern humans dated back to 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
177. On December 29, 1997, the frightening specter of Avian Influenza crossing over the species barrier to affect humans necessitated the killing of about 1.25 million chickens on the island of Hong Kong, accounting for every chicken on the island!
178. On January 12, 1998, 19 European nations agreed to prohibit the cloning of humans.
179. On March 27, 1998, the FDA approved Viagra, a medication to treat erectile dysfunction.
180. On May 15, 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War recounted one of the most frightening displays of masculine toughness perhaps ever practiced in human history!
181. On August 8, 1998, Pamela Johnson of Irving, Texas, founded the Secret Society of Happy People, an organization committed to the expression of happiness and for its members to remember and think about their happy times.
182. On August 24, 1998, science fiction and conspiracy theory met science fact when the first successful human implant of a radio tracker was tested in the UK.
183. On March 26, 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, alias “Dr. Death,” was convicted of second-degree murder in Michigan for giving a terminally ill man a lethal injection at the man’s request.
184. The United Nations Population Fund designated October 12, 1999 as the approximate day on which the world’s human population reached 6 billion.
185. Since the end of the twentieth century, the digitization of information has brought forth a new wave of innovation in healthcare research and services.
186. In 2000, medical cannabis initiatives were passed in the states of Colorado and Nevada.
187. On May 25, 2001, American mountain climber, adventurer, author, and speaker, Erik Weihenmayer, became the first blind person to reach the top of Mt. Everest in Nepal.
188. On August 6, 2001, a tragedy known as the “Erwadi fire incident” occurred in the state of Tamil Nadu in India.
189. On September 18, 2001, in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, people in the United States were jumpy and on edge, not knowing if another attack would occur.
190. On July 8, 2003, a genuine Elvis Presley tooth that onetime girlfriend of Presley, Linda Thompson, had been keeping was listed for a staggering $100,000 on eBay.
191. On August 8, 2004, Chicago’s Little Lady, a tour boat carrying 120 passengers, was bombed by a tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band.
192. In 2005, Chronic Illness, a quarterly peer-reviewed medical journal, was established.
193. On April 22, 2005, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi issued an apology regarding Japan’s conduct during World War II, saying, “In the past, Japan, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. Sincerely facing these facts of history, I once again express my feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology, and also express the feelings of mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, in the war. I am determined not to allow the lessons of that horrible war to erode, and to contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world without ever again waging a war.”
194. On February 16, 2006, the United States Army decommissioned the last of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, or MASH as they were called.
195. On October 28, 2006, former heavyweight champ, Trevor Berbick, was beaten to death with a metal pipe while in a church in Jamaica.
196. On January 4, 2007, Nancy Pelosi, US Representative to Congress from California, was sworn in as the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States congress.
197. On February 23, 2007, during the 2007 Dubai Tennis Championship, Jelena Janković (born 1985) retired from an ankle injury during the match against Amélie Mauresmo (born 1979).
198. On July 10, 2007, Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç, almost 46 years old at the time, set off on what may be the greatest feat of human endurance and physical performance in history, the solo, only human powered circumnavigation of the Earth.
199. On August 23, 2007, the bodies of the remaining Romanov family members were found near Yekaterinburg, Russia, the remains being mere skeletons.
200. On October 6, 2007, Jason Lewis, otherwise an English author, completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth under his own muscular power!
201. On April 30, 2008, Russian scientists confirmed that the skeletal remains found near the city of Yekaterinburg, formerly known as Sverdlovsk, in the Ural District of Russia, were indeed the remains of Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters, possibly Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, the son and daughter of the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II and his wife, Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna.
202. On January 2, 2009, Maria de Jesus of Portugal died in her home at age 115.
203. On January 26, 2009, a single California woman gave birth to 8 babies at one time, becoming the first mother of octuplets that survived infancy.
204. On February 1, 2009, a milestone in LGBT rights occurred when the Icelandic Althing (their version of a Parliament) elected Johanna Siguroardottir Prime Minister, age 66, an openly lesbian woman, the first head of government in the world to be openly LGBT.
205. On October 1, 2009, paleontologists formally announced the discovery of the relatively complete Ardipithecus ramidus fossil skeleton first unearthed in 1994.
206. On June 4, 2010, attorney Brittney Horstman was prevented from meeting with a client while he was incarcerated at the Miami Federal Detention Center because her underwire bra had set off a metal detector.
207. On June 16, 2010, the nation of Bhutan became the first nation in the world to outlaw tobacco.
208. On June 16, 2010, Bhutan, a landlocked country in Asia and the smallest state located entirely within the Himalaya mountain range, became the first country to institute a total ban on tobacco.
209. On August 24, 2010, 72 bodies of illegal immigrants were found in a mass grave by Mexican military units that had just ended a shootout with the dreaded drug and crime cartel, Los Zetas.
210. On April 6, 2011, the second San Fernando mass killings incident was discovered.
211. On April 6, 2011, Mexican law enforcement authorities dug up 59 bodies of innocent people murdered by the Los Zetas drug cartel, and before they were done by June had dug up a total of 193 bodies!
212. On October 31, 2011, a truly spooky fact became known when it was announced by the UN that the population of humans on the Earth had reached seven billion.
213. On May 23, 2012, American Idolrunner up Adam Lambert became the first openly gay musical artist to debut an album at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart with his album, Trespassing (his second album).
214. On July 21, 2012, Turkish-American adventurer Erden Eruç, completed an historic first ever human powered circumnavigation of the Earth.
215. On September 11, 2012, the ascending aorta in the author Major Daniel Zar’s chest exploded, a burst aneurism followed by a massive aorta dissection, spelling almost certain death.
216. On October 9, 2012, 15 year old Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim girl, was shot in the face by Taliban Islamic extremist terrorists for the “crime” of being a girl that wanted to go to school to learn to read and write.
217. On October 22, 2012, cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles due to allegations of illegally using performance enhancing drugs.
218. On December 16, 2012, the United States of America’s President Barack Obama signed a $1.1 trillion “cromnibus” spending bill into law.
219. On January 1, 2013, the first marijuana “club” for private marijuana smoking (no buying or selling, however) was allowed for the first time in Colorado.
220. On January 17, 2013, renowned American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted on Oprah’s Next Chapter, a prime time television show, that he was, as suspected and accused, a cheater that won 7 consecutive Tour de France bicycle races through the assistance of banned drugs.
221. On July 14, 2013, a statue of Rachel Carson was erected at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, commemorating her environmental activism, including writing the book, Silent Spring in 1962 that served to alert Americans about the dangers of pesticides.
222. On February 3, 2014, Altria Group, Inc. acquired popular electronic cigarette brand Green Smoke for $110 million.
223. On February 7, 2014, scientists in England verified that footprints found in an uncovered sediment layer in Happisburgh, Norfolk were of human, or “hominid” origin and dated back about 900,000 years.
224. On May 23, 2014, a mentally disturbed 22 year old man took his mental illness to a new level by killing 3 people with a knife, another 3 with pistols, and injuring another 14 with gunshots and his car, eventually taking his own life as well, in an incident known as the Isla Vista Killings.
225. As of August 20, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported a total of 2,615 suspected cases and 1,427 deaths (1,528 cases and 844 deaths being laboratory confirmed) in an epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) that was then ongoing in West Africa.
226. On October 1, 2014, the findings of a medical study of adults between the ages of 57 and 85 published in the online journal PLOS ONE created a little stir on the internet when it was reported that a loss in one’s sense of smell could be indicative that one has less than five years to live!
227. On October 22, 2014 and again on October 29, 2014, the FX channel television production American Horror Story: Freak Show featured a two-faced character based on an alleged real-life human freak named Edward Mordrake.
228. On October 1st, 2014, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) began its 30th annual international health campaign organized by major breast cancer charities.
229. In 2015, 600 million adults (12%) and 100 million children were obese in 195 countries.
230. On January 9, 2015, a funeral in Mozambique was the eerily appropriate venue for a disaster involving the favorite bubbly beverage of millions, or even billions, of people.
231. On February 18, 2015, ABC News reporter Michelle Charlesworth wrote an article titled “Decode your food cravings to find out what your body really needs.”
232. May 12, 2015 was Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) Awareness Day.
233. On May 22, 2015, voters in Ireland passed a referendum legalizing same sex marriage.
234. On July 11, 2015, the man called “El Chapo” (Shorty), Joaquin Guzman, escaped from Mexican prison via a mile long 30 foot deep tunnel equipped with ventilation, rail tracks, and a motorcycle.
235. On August 5, 2015, Colorado found out the hard way that the Federal Government is capable of massive blunders even when they are trying to “help,” when the EPA managed to spill three million gallons of wastewater and heavy metal tailings from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River.
236. On October 29, 2015, China announced the end of its “one child” policy that had been in effect since 1979, limiting couples to one child in an effort to curb population growth.
237. Established in 2016 as a leading source for all things related to gaming, Casino Guardian strives to be at the forefront where responsible gambling is concerned.
238. Named by President Obama as his nominee for Secretary of the Army in November 2015, Eric Fanning, a 47 year old graduate of Dartmouth and a Defense Department employee, was confirmed for the job by the US Senate on May 17, 2016, making him the first openly gay Secretary of a US Military branch.
239. On June 19, 2016, the young star Hollywood actor Anton Yelchin died horribly when he was hit by his own car in his own driveway.
240. On June 30, 2016, the World Health Organization listed Cannabidiolum in a list of International Nonproprietary Names for Pharmaceutical Substances (INN).
241. On July 26, 2016, engineer André Borschberg and psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard, both from Switzerland, made history with their solar powered airplane, Solar Impulse, when they completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth by a solar powered fixed wing aircraft.
242. On March 31, 2017, lab rats, chemistry students, and scientists were celebrating Bunsen Burner Day, that ubiquitous lab fixture often seen heating secret potions in science fiction film labs.
243. On August 10, 2017, President Trump agreed with his commission’s report released a few weeks earlier and declared the country’s opioid crisis a “national emergency”.
244. On August 22, 2017, CNN reported on two recent studies that showed how a “bad work environment could be bad for your health.”
245. On October 15, 2017, people all across the world celebrated Global Handwashing Day, a day to encourage sanitary hand washing behavior in an effort to cut respiratory (notably pneumonia) and diarrheal diseases.
246. On November 5, 2017, with President Donald J. Trump under fire from seemingly all sides (sometimes including us!), we took this opportunity to congratulate him on setting a fine example to the youth of America by neither smoking nor drinking alcohol.
247. On November 6, 2017, we followed up our article from the previous day about Presidents of the US and their smoking habits with an answer to a reader query about the status of women vis a vis smoking through the years.
248. On November 17, 2019, we celebrated another one of those made up holidays (actually, ALL holidays are made up holidays), National Homemade Bread Day.
249. On January 15, 2018, Irish lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O’Riordan, died in her bathtub, drowned while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
250. On January 30, 2018, we celebrated National Croissant Day in honor of that great “French” pastry roll prevalent among breakfast bars in hotels across the country.
251. On February 6, 2018, we stood with the United Nations in recognizing International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.
252. On February 9, 2018, we at History and Headlines took a moment to ponder the imponderable: Where do all these “National Days” come from?
253. On March 3, 2018, the track and field world lost one of its greatest runners when Roger Bannister died, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.
254. On May 6, 2018, we pondered the premise of the incredibly popular movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Avengers: Infinity War.
255. On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, was breaking box office records, we stopped to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe.
256. On August 30, 2018, we celebrated National Toasted Marshmallow Day, a day in late summer when we gather around the campfire with long forks or even sharpened sticks and toast our bubbly, gooey marshmallow treats.
257. On September 1, 2018, men across the world got revenge on women for living longer and getting better car insurance deals, by celebrating World Beard Day!
258. On September 28, 2018, the 4^th Thursday in September, we celebrated National Brave Day.
259. On October 11, 2018, the United States of America stood united in celebrating National Sausage Pizza Day!
260. On October 17, 2018, the recreational use of Marijuana was legalized in Canada.
261. On December 31, 2018, History and Headlines took a look at one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions that Americans claim to be dedicated to, at least as tallied by Google searches.
262. In 2019, alopecia was one of the most widespread diseases all over the world.
263. In 2019, surrogacy was not legally regulated in the Czech Republic and so is generally considered legal.
264. On May 8, 2019, a British teenager became the first patient to receive bacteriophage therapy to treat an antibiotic resistant infection.
265. On May 9, 2019, we once again celebrated a special day, National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, a “holiday” celebrated on the first Thursday of the first full week of May each year.
266. On May 13, 2019, we celebrated National Apple Pie Day, the most American of desserts.
267. On June 5, 2019, we were supposed to celebrate National Positive Attitude Day, another one of those made up “holidays” so that every day of the year has some reason to exist.
268. On July 11, 2019, the annual frozen drink concoction promotion held by convenience store chain 7-Eleven is celebrated by giving away a free Slurpee to customers.
269. On July 19, 2019, as our nation celebrated National Daiquiri Day, that wonderful concoction with Rum and fruit juices, usually served over ice or as a “frozen” drink, we reflected on those other liquid refreshments that are also named after a place.
270. On July 29, 2019, we celebrated National Lasagna Day, a day to revel in the wonderfulness of Italian style cooking.
271. By October 13, 2019, numerous reports have come out from across the United States over the preceding months that nearly 1,300 people have been sickened by a mysterious form of lipoid pneumonia – an illness in which oil becomes trapped in the lungs and is attacked by the body’s immune system.
272. On March 12, 2020, people all over the globe were wondering about the true origins and the true implications of the “coronavirus” that (as we are told) originated in Wuhan, China.
273. On March 17, 2020, the United States of America and Ireland both have cancelled virtually all St. Patrick’s Day festivities, absolutely destroying one of the jolliest holidays in either country.
274. On March 26, 2020, not only Popeye the Sailor Man but all Americans should have been celebrating National Spinach Day.
275. On March 31, 2020, we published an article to discuss only those jerks as they relate to our coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that was killing people across the country and the world and threatened to destroy our economy.
276. On April 22, 2020, the pandemic of the COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2, or better known as “coronavirus,” has claimed another victim, as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer, in this case the venerable Urbana University, an Ohio college that was only the second institute of higher learning in Ohio to admit women as students alongside men.
277. On May 9, 2020, the unemployment rate in the United States hit the staggering number of 14.9%, the worst employment number since the Great Depression in 1939.
278. On July 29, 2020, Americans celebrated another of our greatest holidays, National Chicken Wing Day!
279. On October 1, 2021, the international exposition known as Expo 2020 was opened in Dubai, an expo delayed by the Covid 19 pandemic since its intended opening of October 20, 2020.
280. On April 20, 2022, marijuana users celebrated a day that is commonly acknowledged as “Marijuana Day,” an unofficial holiday in which marijuana aficionados rally around their herb of choice and advocate for the legalization of recreational  marijuana use and the associated decriminalization of the growing, possession, and use of the leaves of Cannabis sativa and its closely related kin, Cannabis indica, the scientific name of the plant we usually refer to as marijuana, weed, pot, or other euphemistic names.
281. On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court handed down a blockbuster ruling that would become a major bragging point for then former President Donald Trump, the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion a right all across the United States.
282. On January 24, 2023, Americans celebrated National Peanut Butter Day, a day when we could savor the flavor of our favorite bread spread that lends itself to making cookies, pies, candies, and other foodstuffs.
283. On February 26, 2023, the Wall Street Journal said that the US Department of Energy reported that the origin of the world-wide pandemic of COVID-19 in all probability did indeed come from a leak at the Wuhan, China biological lab that was the epicenter of the outbreak in late 2019.
284. On March 5, 2023, Americans celebrate yet another of those strange “National Days” that you may not be aware of, this time, honoring that fabled alcoholic beverage, Absinthe, known as “The Green Fairey.”
285. On May 16, 2023, Americans celebrated National Barbecue Day, something that means different things in different parts of the country.
286. On June 18, 2023, we celebrated National Turkey Lovers’ Day, and yes, we too love Turkey!
287. On June 23, 2023, Americans celebrated National Detroit Style Pizza Day, a day to honor perhaps America’s favorite food in a unique style.
288. On August 3, 2023, as with every First Thursday in August, Americans celebrated National IPA Day.
289. On February 5, 2024, Royal spokespersons released information that the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, King Charles III, had been diagnosed and is under treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer.
290. On March 22, 2024, the Princess of Wales, Catherine Middleton Windsor, the wife of the future King of the UK, William, Prince of Wales, announced that she is being treated for an unspecified cancer discovered during her recent abdominal surgery.
291. On April 3, 2024, Americans celebrated National Walking Day, a day celebrated only since 2007 in spite of being an activity people have been doing since proto-humans came down from the trees.
292. On September 29, 2024, we celebrates another National Coffee Day, reveling in our appreciation for that “Cup of Joe,” “Shot of Caffeine,” “Java,” “Go Juice,” or whatever you want to call it.
293. On September 30, 2024, we celebrated another National Chewing Gum Day, which brings us the question, “Who invented chewing gum?”
294. On October 26, 2024, we celebrated another National Pumpkin Day, noting those orange gourds that make delicious pies, cheesecakes, and iconic Fall decorations.

Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What was the most interesting event in the History of Western Medicine, Disease, and Public Health from 1700 to the present and why?

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Markham, J. David and Matthew Zarzeczny.  Simply Napoleon.  Simply Charly, 2017.

Zarzeczny, Matthew D.  Meteors That Enlighten the Earth: Napoleon and the Cult of Great Men.  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

The featured image in this article, a World War II poster of the Red Cross from the United States of America, is a work of the United States Department of the Treasury, taken or made as part of an employee’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States.