Dr. Fritz Derom performed a successful single-lung transplantation on patient Aloïs Vereecken at the University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium.
Twelve doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston performed the first successful reattachment of a human limb – it was the severed arm of a boy.
The FDA approved the first oral contraceptive pill called Enovid.
Dr. Albert Sabin announced his oral vaccine against polio was ready to test.
Genius Albert Einstein died due to heart failure at age 76.
Jonas Salk's Polio vaccine tested by Jonas Salk was given final approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Joseph E. Murray performed the first human kidney transplant at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
The first major mass trials of polio vaccines began.
Polio vaccines were given to the first group of children in the US at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Conjoined twins were successfully separated for the first time.
The twisted ladder structure of DNA was discovered.
A human organ is surgically reconstructed for the first time.
The United Nations formed the World Health Organization (WHO).
Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, isolated Streptomycin, which became the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis (TB).
Winston Churchill fell ill with pneumonia.
The first successful administration of insulin to treat diabetes was given to 14-year-old Leonard Thompson.
National Hospital Day was first observed.
Medical researcher Oswald Hope Robertson performed the first-ever blood transfusion using stored and refrigerated blood.
The Safety Hood, which would later become the gas mask, was patented by Garrett Morgan.
The first case of the bubonic plague was announced in Honolulu.
Felix Hoffmann patented one of the world's most common drugs, Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid).
Dr. Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium Tuberculosis which is bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB).
Earmuffs were patented.
American religious leader Mary Baker Eddy was allegedly cured of her spinal injury by reading The Bible.
Inventor Benjamin J. Lane patented the first self-contained gas mask.
Anesthetic was used for the first time on a dental patient by Dr. William Morton.
Anesthesia used for the first time for childbirth.
Ether was used as an anesthetic for the first time, by American surgeon Crawford Long, in Athens, Georgia.
First abdominal surgery performed.
Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Harvard University gave the first smallpox inoculations in Boston following America's biggest outbreak.
The first documented blood transfusion took place using sheep blood in a teenage boy.
The first recorded example of having to 'quarantine' was written by The Ragusan Republic.
Pope Clement VI issued two papal bulls stating that Jews were not to blame for the Black Death.
Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars came into alignment. Medieval scholars believed this phenomenon brought forth the Black Death.
