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From Monkeys to Humans
In West Central Africa, a hunter kills a chimpanzee. Some of the blood enters the hunter's body, infecting him with a virus harmless to the chimp, but lethal to humans.
The virus spreads as the area is populated, but the deaths are blamed on other causes. -
The First Cases Are Noticed
The CDC publishes a report that five young homosexual men in Los Angeles have fatal or life-threatening PCP pneumonia. This later turns out to be the one of the major "opportunistic infections" that kill people with AIDS. -
It Gets a Name
The CDC calls it acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.
It is around this time that gay men form the very first groups with a focus on AIDS advocacy. -
Not Only A Danger to Gay Men
The CDC warns that AIDS may be spread by heterosexual sex and by mother-to-child transmission.
The heterosexual spread of AIDS in Africa begins.
Researchers manage to isolate the virus from the swollen lymph gland of an AIDS patient. -
Celebrity Attention
Famous actor and closeted homosexual Rock Hudson dies of AIDS.
AIDS hysteria builds.
AmFAR is founded with actress Elizabeth Taylor, a close friend of Hudson's, as spokeswoman. -
It Receives Another Name
Not until 1986 does everyone agree to call the virus HIV: human immunodeficiency virus.