Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More
Thirteen people in surgical caps and scrubs seen huddled around a medical table with medical equipment.
An early heart transplant surgery in Poland (1969). (Photo: University of Łódź, permission by Ryszard Jaszewski)

First heart transplant takes place.

1967

MED
GLSO
An early heart transplant surgery in Poland (1969). (Photo: University of Łódź, permission by Ryszard Jaszewski)

The transplant takes place in Cape Town, South Africa. It gains global attention both because of the innovation of the surgery and because of the multiracial team that contributes to its success.

One member of the team, Hamilton Naki, is officially a gardener at the hospital, as he had no access to medical education due to the country's apartheid laws, and so he learned medical procedures by observing them. Naki will later be awarded an honorary medical degree due to the extent of his participation in many groundbreaking surgeries.