| 3000 BCE | Dawn of Sumerian, Egyptian, and Minoan cultures – drains, flush toilets |
| 2000 BCE | Indus valley – urban society with sanitation facilities |
| 1700 BCE | The Code of Hammurabi – rules governing medical practice |
| 1500 BCE | Mosaic Law – personal, food, and camp hygiene, segregating lepers, overriding duty of sanctity of human life (Pikuah Nefesh) and improving the world (Tikkun Olam) as religious imperatives |
| 400 BCE | Greece – personal hygiene, fitness, nutrition, sanitation, municipal doctors, occupational health; Hippocrates – clinical and epidemic observation and environmental health |
| 500 BCE to 500 CE | Rome – aqueducts, baths, sanitation, municipal planning, and sanitation services, public baths, municipal doctors, military, and occupational health |
| 170 CE | Galen – physiology, anatomy, humors dominated western medicine until 1500 CE |
| 500–1000 | Europe – destruction of Roman society and the rise of Christianity; sickness as punishment for sin; mortification of the flesh, prayer, fasting, and faith as therapy; poor nutrition and hygiene, pandemics; antiscience; care of the sick as religious duty |
| 700–1200 | Islam – preservation of ancient health knowledge, schools of medicine, Arab–Jewish medical advances (Ibn Sinna and Maimonides) |
| 1000+ | Universities and hospitals in Middle East and Europe |
| 1000+ | Rise of cities, trade, and commerce, craft guilds, municipal hospitals |
| 1096–1272 | Crusades – contact with Arabic medicine, hospital orders of knights, leprosy |
| 1268 | Roger Bacon publishes treatise on use of eyeglasses to improve vision |
| 1348 | Venice – board of health and quarantine established |
| 1348–1350 | Black Death – origins in Asia, spread by armies of Genghis Khan, world pandemic kills 60 million in fourteenth century, one-third to one-half of the population of Europe |
| 1300 | Pandemics – bubonic plague, smallpox, leprosy, diphtheria, typhoid, measles, influenza, tuberculosis, anthrax, trachoma, scabies, and others until eighteenth century |
| 1400–1600s | Renaissance and Enlightenment, decline of feudalism, rise of urban middle class, trade, commerce, exploration, new technology, printing, arts, science, anatomy, microscopy, physiology, surgery, clinical medicine, hospitals (religious, municipal, voluntary) |
| 1518 | Royal College of Physicians founded in London |
| 1532 | Bills of Mortality published |
| 1546 | Girolamo Fracastorus publishes De Contagione – the germ theory |
| 1562–1601 | Elizabethan Poor Laws – responsibility for the poor on local government |
| 1628 | William Harvey publishes findings on circulation of the blood |
| 1629 | London Bills of Mortality specify causes of death |
| 1639 | Massachusetts law requires recording of births and deaths |
| 1660s | Leyden University strengthens anatomical education |
| 1661 | John Graunt founds medical statistics |
| 1661 | Rene Descartes publishes first treatise on physiology |
| 1662 | Royal Society of London founded by Francis Bacon |
| 1665 | Great Plague of London |
| 1673 | Antony van Leeuwenhoek – microscope, observes sperm and bacteria |
| 1667 | Pandemics of smallpox in London; pandemic of malaria in Europe |
| 1687 | William Petty publishes Essays in Political Arithmetic |
| 1700 | Bernardino Ramazzini publishes compendium of occupational diseases |
| 1701 | London – 75% of newborns die before fifth birthday |
| 1701 | Variolation against smallpox practiced in Constantinople, isolation practiced in Massachusetts |
| 1710 | English Quarantine Act |
| 1720+ | London – voluntary teaching in hospitals; Guy’s, Westminster |
| 1721 | Lady Mary Montagu introduces inoculation for smallpox to England |
| 1730 | Science and scientific medicine; Rights of Man, encyclopedias, agricultural and industrial revolutions, population growth – high birth rates, falling death rates |
| 1733 | Obstetrical forceps invented |
| 1733 | Stephen Hales measures blood pressure |
| 1747 | James Lind – case–control study of scurvy in sailors |
| 1750 | British naval hospitals established |
| 1750 | John Hunter establishes modern surgical practice and teaching |
| 1752 | William Smellie publishes textbook of midwifery |
| 1762 | Jean Jacques Rousseau publishes the Social Contract |
| 1775 | Percivall Pott investigates scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps |
| 1777 | John Howard promotes prison and hospital reform in England |
| 1779 | Johann Frank promotes Medical Police in Germany |
| 1785 | William Withering – discovers foxglove (Digitalis) treatment of dropsy |
| 1788 | UK legislation to protect boys employed as chimney sweeps |
| 1796 | Edward Jenner – vaccinates 24 children against smallpox from milkmaid’s cowpox pustules |
| 1796 | British Admiralty adopts daily issue of lime juice for sailors at sea to prevent scurvy |
| 1797 | Massachusetts legislation permitting local boards of health |
| 1798 | Philippe Pinel removes chains from insane in Bicetre Asylum in France |
| 1798 | President John Adams signs law for care of sick and injured seamen, establishing marine hospital service, later becoming US Public Health Service (1912) |
| 1800 | Britain and US establish Municipal Boards of Health |
| 1800 | Vaccination adopted by British army and navy |
| 1800 | Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham – economic, social philosophers |
| 1801 | Vaccination mandatory in Denmark, local eradication of smallpox |
| 1801 | First national census, UK |
| 1804 | Modern chemistry established – Humphrey Davey, John Dalton |
| 1807 | UK Abolition Act – mandates eradication of international slave trade enforced by the Royal Navy |
| 1827 | Carl von Baer in St. Petersburg establishes science of embryology |
| 1834 | UK Poor Law Amendment Act documents harsh state of urban working class in the USA |
| 1837 | UK National Vaccination |
| 1830s–1840s | Sanitary and social reform, growth of science; voluntary societies for reform, boards of health, mines and factory acts – improving working conditions |
| 1842 | Edwin Chadwick – UK Poor Law Commission on Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain – links poverty and disease |
| 1844 | Horace Wells – anesthesia in dentistry, then surgery in the USA |
| 1848 | UK Parliament passes Public Health Act establishing the General Board of Health |
| 1850 | Massachusetts – Shattuck Report of Sanitary Commission |
| 1852 | Adolph Chatin uses iodine for prophylaxis of goiter |
| 1854 | John Snow – waterborne cholera in London: the Broad Street pump |
| 1854 | Florence Nightingale, modern nursing and hospital reform – Crimean War |
| 1855 | London – mandatory filtration of water supplies and consolidation of sanitation authorities |
| 1858 | Louis Pasteur proves no spontaneous generation of life |
| 1858 | Rudolf Virchow publishes Cellular Pathology; pioneer in political–social health context |
| 1858 | Public Health and Local Government Act and Medical Act in UK – local health authorities and national licensing of physicians |
| 1859 | Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species |
| 1861 | Emancipation of the serfs in Russia |
| 1861 | Ignaz Semmelweiss publishes The Cause, Concept and Prophylaxis of Puerperal Fever |
| 1862 | Louis Pasteur publishes findings on microbial causes of disease |
| 1862 | Florence Nightingale founds St. Thomas’ Hospital School of Nursing |
| 1862 | Sanitary Commission during US Civil War |
| 1862 | Emancipation of slaves in the USA |
| 1864 | Boston bans use of milk from diseased cows |
| 1864 | Russia – rural health as tax-supported local service through Zemstvos |
| 1864 | First International Geneva Convention and founding of International Committee of the Red Cross |
| 1866 | Gregor Johann Mendel, a Czech monk, publishes basic laws of heredity establishing the scientific basis of genetics |
| 1867 | Joseph Lister describes use of carbolic spray for antisepsis |
| 1869 | Dimitri Ivanovitch Mendeleev – periodic table |
| 1872 | American Public Health Association founded |
| 1872 | Milk stations established in New York immigrant slums |
| 1876 | Robert Koch discovers anthrax bacillus |
| 1876 | Neisser discovers Gonococcus organism |
| 1879 | US National Board of Health established |
| 1879 | US Food and Drug Administration established |
| 1880 | Typhoid bacillus discovered (Laveran); leprosy organism (Hansen); malaria organism (Laveran) |
| 1882 | Robert Koch discovers the tuberculosis organism, tubercle bacillus |
| 1883 | Otto von Bismarck introduces social security with workmen’s compensation, national health insurance for workers and their families in Germany |
| 1883 | Robert Koch discovers bacillus of cholera |
| 1883 | Louis Pasteur vaccinates against anthrax |
| 1885 | Kanehiro Takaki of the Japanese navy describes beriberi; recommends diet change eliminating the sailor’s disease |
| 1884 | Diphtheria, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, tetanus organisms identified |
| 1885 | Pasteur develops rabies vaccine; Escherich discovers coli bacillus |
| 1886 | Karl Fraenkel discovers the Pneumococcus organism |
| 1887 | Malta fever or brucellosis (Bruce) and chancroid (Ducrey) organisms identified |
| 1887 | US National Institutes of Health founded |
| 1892 | Gas gangrene organism discovered by Welch and Nuttal |
| 1893 | Lillian Wald organizes Henry Street Mission and the Visiting Nurses Association of New York for care of the poor and disabled in their own homes |
| 1894 | Plague organism discovered (Yersin, Kitasato); botulism organism (Van Ermengem) |
| 1895 | Louis Pasteur develops vaccine for rabies |
| 1895 | Wilhelm Roentgen – discovers electromagnetic waves (X-rays) for diagnostic imaging |
| 1895 | Emil von Behring develops diphtheria vaccine (Nobel Prize 1901) |
| 1897 | Edmond Nocard develops antitetanus serum (ATS) for passive immunity |
| 1897 | London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine founded |
| 1897 | Felix Hoffman – synthesizes acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) |
| 1904 | Ivan Petrovitch wins Nobel Prize for work in conditioned reflexes, neurophysiology |
| 1905 | Abraham Flexner – major report on medical education in the USA |
| 1905 | Workman’s Compensation Acts in Canada |
| 1906 | US Pure Food and Drug Act passed by Congress |
| 1910 | Paul Ehrlich – chemotherapy use of arsenical salvarsan for treatment of syphilis |
| 1911 | Lloyd-George, UK compulsory health insurance for workers |
| 1911 | Kasimir Funk investigates “vital amines” and names them vitamins |
| 1912 | Health insurance for industrial workers in Russia |
| 1912 | US Children’s Bureau and US Public Health Service established |
| 1914 | Joseph Goldberger of US Public Health Service investigates cause and prevention of pellagra |
| 1915 | Johns Hopkins and Harvard Schools of Public Health founded |
| 1915 | Tetanus prophylaxis and antitoxin for gas gangrene |
| 1918–1919 | Pandemic of Spanish flu (influenza) kills some 20 million people |
| 1918 | Nikolai Semashko introduces USSR national health plan |
| 1921 | Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulin in Toronto (Nobel Prize 1923) |
| 1923 | Health Organization of League of Nations established |
| 1924 | David Cowie promotes widespread ionization of salt in the USA; Morton’s iodized salt popular in North America |
| 1924 | Tetanus toxoid vaccine developed |
| 1926 | Pertussis vaccine developed |
| 1928 | Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin (Nobel Prize 1945) |
| 1928 | George Papanicolaou develops Pap smear for early detection of cancer of cervix |
| 1929–1936 | The Great Depression – widespread economic collapse, unemployment, poverty, and social distress in industrialized countries |
| 1930 | US Food and Drug Administration established |
| 1935 | President Roosevelt – Social Security Act and the New Deal in the USA |
| 1939 | UK National Hospital Service – wartime nationalization of hospitals |
| 1940 | Charles Drew describes storage and use of blood plasma for transfusion |
| 1941 | Norman Gregg reports rubella in pregnancy causing congenital anomalies |
| 1941 | President Roosevelt initiates food fortification in the USA, adopted in Canada and UK |
| 1942 | William Beveridge Report in the UK – the “Welfare State" |
| 1942 | USA establishes National Centers for Disease Control and Emergency Maternity and Infant Care for families of servicemen |
| 1939–1945 | World War II, with catastrophic military and civilian loss of life, wartime emergency medical structure; Nazi Holocaust of 6 million Jews and many others |
| 1945 | Diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus (DPT) vaccine developed |
| 1945 | Trial of fluoridation of community water supplies, Grand Rapids MI; Newburgh, NY; and Brantford, Ontario |
| 1946 | World Health Organization founded |
| 1946 | National health insurance defeated in US Congress |
| 1946 | US Communicable Disease Center (CDC) established in Atlanta; later called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention |
| 1946 | US Congress Hill–Burton Act supports local hospital construction up to 4.5 beds per 1000 population |
| 1946 | Tommy Douglas – Saskatchewan provincial hospital insurance plan |
| 1947 | Nuremberg Doctors Trial of Nazi crimes against humanity |
| 1948 | International Declaration of Human Rights |
| 1948 | UK establishes National Health Service |
| 1950 | CDC establishes the Epidemiological Intelligence Service (EIS) |
| 1953 | James Watson and Francis Crick discover the double helix structure of DNA (Nobel Prize 1962) |
| 1954 | Framingham study of heart disease risk factors |
| 1954 | Richard Doll reports on link between smoking and lung cancer |
| 1954 | Jonas Salk’s inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine licensed |
| 1955 | Michael Buonocore develops dental sealants |
| 1956 | Gregory Pincus reports first successful trials of birth control pills |
| 1960 | Albert Sabin – live poliomyelitis vaccine licensed |
| 1961 | American Academy of Pediatrics recommends routine vitamin K for all newborns |
| 1961 | CDC publishes Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) |
| 1963 | Measles vaccine licensed |
| 1964 | US Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking (Luther Terry) |
| 1965 | The USA enacts Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor |
| 1966 | US National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act |
| 1967 | Mumps vaccine licensed |
| 1970 | Rubella vaccine licensed |
| 1971 | Canada has universal health insurance in all provinces |
| 1971 | US National Center for Health Statistics conducts the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to capture the health status of Americans. |
| 1972 | US Stanford Three Community Study starts (later The Stanford Five-City Project); a 23% reduction in coronary heart disease risk by community-based interventions to change lifestyle risk factors – physical activity, dietary habits, and tobacco use |
| 1972 | Finland’s North Karelia Project begins, to prevent cardiovascular disease; cardiovascular mortality rates for men aged between 35 and 64 years decreased by 57% from 1970 to 1992 |
| 1973 | MMWR reports that lead emissions in a residential area constitute a public health threat |
| 1974 | Marc Lalonde New Perspectives on the Health of Canadians |
| 1977 | WHO adopts Health for All by the Year 2000 |
| 1977 | Last known outbreak of smallpox reported in Somalia |
| 1977 | Framingham study shows effects of triglycerides and LDL- and HDL-cholesterol on heart disease |
| 1978 | Alma-Ata Conference on Primary Health Care |
| 1978 | Hepatitis B vaccine licensed |
| 1979 | Canada adopts mandatory vitamin/mineral enrichment of foods |
| 1979 | WHO declares eradication of smallpox achieved |
| 1981 | AIDS – first recognition of cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome |
| 1983 | CDC – Violence Epidemiology Branch to apply prevention strategies to child abuse, homicide, and suicide |
| 1984 | Harald zur Haisen discovers link between human papillomavirus and cancer of cervix (Nobel Prize 2008) |
| 1985 | WHO European Region Health Targets |
| 1985 | Haemophilus influenzae b (Hib) vaccine licensed by FDA |
| 1985 | Luc Montaignier publishes genetic sequence of HIV (with Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Nobel Prize 2008) |
| 1986 | First coronary stent implanted by Jacques Puel and Ulrich Sigwart in France |
| 1988 | American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends annual Pap smears for all women |
| 1988 | Framingham study shows isolated systolic hypertension linked to increase risk of heart disease |
| 1988 | Framingham study shows cigarette smoking increases risk of stroke |
| 1989 | WHO targets eradication of polio by the year 2000 |
| 1989 | Warren and Marshall discover Helicobacter pylori as treatable cause of peptic ulcers (Nobel Prize 2005) |
| 1989 | International Convention on the Rights of the Child |
| 1990 | World Summit on Children, New York |
| 1990 | World Conference on Education for All, Jomtien, Thailand |
| 1990 | W. F. Anderson performs first successful gene therapy |
| 1990 | Newly emerging and re-emerging diseases (HIV, Marburg, Ebola, cholera, BSE, TB) and multidrug-resistant organisms |
| 1991 | Folic acid proven to prevent neural tube defects |
| 1992 | United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro |
| 1992 | International Conference on Nutrition |
| 1992 | The Victoria Declaration in Canada on Heart Health affirms that CVD is largely preventable, that scientific knowledge exists to eliminate most CVD, and that public health infrastructure and capacity to address prevention are lacking |
| 1993 | World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna |
| 1993 | World Development Report: Investing in Health published by World Bank |
| 1993 | Russian Federation approves compulsory national health insurance |
| 1994 | International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo |
| 1994 | Clinton National Health Insurance plan defeated in US Congress |
| 1995 | World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen |
| 1995 | United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing |
| 1996 | Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlement (Habitat II), Istanbul |
| 1996 | Explosive growth of managed care plan coverage in the USA |
| 1997 | Legal action for damages against tobacco companies for costs of health effects of smoking, 33 states in the USA and other countries |
| 1997 | US President Clinton apologizes for Tuskegee study of syphilis among black American men (1932–1972) |
| 1998 | US President Clinton proposes legislation on patients’ rights in managed care |
| 1998 | FDA approves rotavirus vaccine |
| 1998 | WHO Health for All in the Twenty-First Century adopted |
| 1998 | US National Academy of Sciences recommends routine vitamin supplements for adults |
| 1998 | Bologna Declaration on postgraduate education in Europe adopts BA, MA, and PhD levels |
| 1998 | The USA, Canada, and Chile adopt mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid to prevent birth defects |
| 1999 | US Congress passes legislation regulating patients’ rights in managed care |
| 1999 | Master Settlement Agreement between US states and tobacco companies for $206 billion for Medicaid damages |
| 1999 | MMWR publishes Ten Great Public Health Achievements – United States, 1900–1999 |
| 2000 | The entire human genome is mapped |
| 2000 | WHO 53rd World Health Assembly endorses global strategy for non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention and control, with monitoring, preventing, and managing major NCDs with common risk factors and determinants: cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease |
| 2001 | 9/11 Terrorism and mass casualties in destruction by Islamic terrorists of Twin Towers in New York City |
| 2001 | Anthrax bioterrorism threats in USA |
| 2001 | Millennium Development Goals proposed by the United Nations accepted by most member states as global effort to reduce poverty, and improve education and health in poor countries |
| 2003 | SARS epidemic in China reaches Toronto; 8098 total cases with 774 deaths |
| 2003 | WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control adopted by the 56th World Health Assembly |
| 2004 | Tsunami and mass casualties in South-East Asia |
| 2004 | WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health endorsed by World Health Assembly |
| 2005 | Hurricanes Katrina and Rita cause widespread devastation and mass casualties |
| 2005 | Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a globalized world |
| 2005 | International Health Regulations promoted by WHO adopted by 194 countries |
| 2006 | Bird flu of H5N1 virus threatens world pandemic |
| 2006 | Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine approved by FDA for prevention of cervical cancer |
| 2006 | Medicare Part D prescription drug plan for seniors instituted in the USA |
| 2007 | HPV vaccine in wide use for preteen girls in industrialized countries |
| 2008 | China – milk products deliberately contaminated with melanine; over 14,000 hospitalized |
| 2008 | Commission on Social Determinants of Health reveals the appalling levels of health inequality resulting in premature deaths and stunted lives |
| 2008 | Global tuberculosis control – progress to control the TB epidemic slowed in 2006 |
| 2009 | Creuzfeldt–Jakob disease – outbreaks of BSE in animals in several countries |
| 2009 | WHO and UNICEF launch the Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of pneumonia (GAPP) in 65 countries to prevent up to 5.3 million child deaths from pneumonia by 2015 |
| 2009 | World malaria report 2009 – reduced impact of malaria needed to achieve Millennium Development Goals; 243–311 million malaria cases worldwide and 863,000 to 1 million early deaths per year, almost all in the poorest countries |
| 2009 | H1N1 pandemic announced by WHO |
| 2010 | Haiti suffers 7.0 magnitude earthquake with massive loss of life and displacement; many deaths from cholera |
| 2010 | Massive floods in Pakistan and China: Pakistan’s flood crisis affects over 215 million people, with 6 million needing life-saving humanitarian and health care; in China more than 400 million |
| 2010 | Millennium Development Goals 2010 status report – progress in some regions, but in sub-Saharan Africa goals will not be achieved by 2015 |
| 2010 | US Congress enacts President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or “Obamacare”) to extend health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured Americans |
| 2011 | HPV vaccine recommended by US CDC for boys as well as girls |
| 2012 | US Supreme Court upholds legality of PPACA |
Source: Deutsche Welle Focus: Millennium Development Goals [updated 21 September 2012]. Bonn: Deutsche Welle. Available at: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6003071,00.html [Accessed 17 July 2012].