AIDS is an everyday experience. These dates represent milestones in the AIDS epidemic. Some dates are known globally; others commemorate individual experiences. AIDS Is Everyday is an ongoing art project produced in conjunction with Visual AIDS to help break down the silence, shame and stigma surrounding HIV.

Add a date about your history with HIV to our online calendar at poz.com/AIDSIsEveryday.

APRIL

1 – President Ronald Reagan delivers his first “major speech” on AIDS. (1987)

7 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House launch “Act Against AIDS,” a multiyear, multifaceted initiative designed to reduce HIV incidence in the United States. (2009)

National Youth HIV AIDS Awareness Day Campaign

Courtesy of NYHAAD

10 – National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day

15 – The First International AIDS Conference convenes in Atlanta. (1985)

18 – National Transgender HIV Testing Day

24 – Arne Vidar Røed, a Norwegian sailor and truck driver, dies. He is the earliest confirmed HIV case in Europe. (1976)

25 – I, You, We opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art featuring work by Hugh Steers. (2013)

29 – The first Western blot blood test kit to detect HIV antibodies is approved in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (1987)

MAY

Washington, DC. USA, 1986 Elizabeth Taylor testifies in front of congress about AIDS.

Elizabeth TaylorMark Reinstein/Shutterstock.com

2 – The first AIDS Candlelight March, “Fighting for Our Lives,” takes place in San Francisco and New York. (1983)

8 – Elizabeth Taylor testifies before members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations about the need for greater investments inHIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment. (1986) 

9 – Vito Russo gives his “Why We Fight” speech at an ACT UP demonstration in Albany, New York. (1988)

Robert ReedWikimedia/Edward Paul Reyes

12 – Robert Reed, the patriarch on the TV series The Brady Brunch, dies at 59. It’s reported that HIV contributed to his death. (1992) 

15 – Fifteen-year-old African-American teenager Robert Rayford dies; he is later believed to be the earliest case of HIV/AIDS in North America. (1969)

18 – HIV Vaccine Awareness Day

19 – National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

20 – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, MD, reports the discovery of a retrovirus called lymphadenopathy associated virus that could be the cause of AIDS. (1983)

26 – Surgeon General C. Everett Koop mails copies of the booklet Understanding AIDS to all 107 million households in the United States. (1988)

27 – The FDA licenses a rapid HIV diagnostic test kit that provides results from blood tests in 10 minutes. (1992)