SYMHC Classics: Polio, The Dread Disease

“Le Chat Noir” is one of the most famous pieces of late 19th century European art, but the artist behind it was also very active in France's anarchist and socialist political groups of the time. Research: Asimakis, Magdalyn. “War, Socialism, and Cats: Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen ...  Show more

The President's House was the first home of the U.S. president in the temporary capital of Phildelphia. While George Washington lived there, he had nine enslaved people that we know of., including the cook, Hercules. Research: “George Washington to Tobias Lear, 12 April 1791,” Fo ...  Show more

For much of human history, polio was absolutely terrifying. People weren't sure how it spread, they had no idea how to treat it, and they realized anyone could be infected. This changed with the emergence of polio vaccination, which was considered, for the most part, a massive su ...  Show more

In the 1950s, polio spread throughout the United States. Heartbreakingly, it affected mainly children. Thousands died. Thousands more were paralyzed. Many ended up surviving only in iron lungs, a machine that breathed for polio victims, sometimes for years. Scientists raced to fi ...  Show more

Eighteen million people were vaccinated against smallpox in the former communist Yugoslavia in only a month and a half in 1972. The mass vaccination campaign succeeded in containing the last smallpox epidemic in Europe. Dr Ana Gligic was a virologist who detected the first cases ...  Show more

Right now vaccinations are all over the news. There are many companies that have developed vaccines for COVID-19 and there is a good chance that most people in the world will wind up getting a vaccine in the next year or two. Many of you may never have given much thought to what ...  Show more