Wed, 01/16/2019 - 10:33 gkellett
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AIDS activists prepare to hang an effigy of President Ronald Reagan at the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville, Maryland, on October 11, 1988.
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Catherine McGann/Getty Images
Jan 1, 2001

President Reagan made his first public speech about AIDS and established the Presidential Commission on HIV, which would later hear testimony from doctors, researchers, and activists. This was six years—and nearly twenty-five thousand deaths—after the start of the epidemic.

Timeline Entry Prefix
May 31, 1987