A history of medicine, one line a day
Smallpox is gone. Polio nearly is. Put the how in order.
Each day brings five milestones in the long fight against disease. Put them in time order, then read every one quoted word for word from its named source, with the page it came from.
Play today’s line Browse the Record
49 milestones29 source pagesEvery quote word for word
Sunday, November 1, 2026
Today’s five
No years shown until you lock in your order. Same five for everyone, all day, New York time.
- Treatments that can cure hepatitis C become available
- The inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is licensed
- The World Health Assembly declares the world free of smallpox
- Kitasato isolates the tetanus organism from a patient
- March 24 is recognized as World TB Day, a century after Koch
How a line works
- 1
Read five labels
A vaccine licence, a germ found, a disease declared gone. Each label says what happened, not when.
- 2
Put them in order
Drag, use the arrows, or pick a position from the menu. Earliest at the top.
- 3
Read the record
See the years, your score, and each milestone in its source’s own words, with the page and its date.
Gone for good
Two diseases have ever been eradicated.
1980
Smallpox A human disease
“Almost two centuries after Jenner hoped that vaccination could annihilate smallpox, the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of this disease on May 8, 1980.”
CDCHistory of SmallpoxPage dated October 23, 2024
2001
Rinderpest A cattle disease
“With the last identified case dating back to 2001, Rinderpest has been eradicated globally and is now the second infectious disease, after smallpox for humans, for which this remarkable achievement has been made.”
WOAHRinderpestRead October 11, 2026 (page shows no date)
“Cured” is not one word.
Public health separates control, elimination and eradication. A country can be rid of a disease that still circulates elsewhere, and a disease can be curable yet still kill millions. The words page quotes the definitions.
- Controlreduced to a locally acceptable level
- Eliminationzero in a defined area; efforts continue
- Eradicationzero worldwide; efforts no longer needed
- Extinctionthe agent no longer exists, even in a lab
Not beaten yet
“There is no cure for HIV infection.”
HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio and Guinea worm, in WHO and CDC’s own words. Where they stand
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