History and timeline

2 September 2024. Related: Advocates, Resources.

There are many different histories of HIV in every country and in different communities.

History can put local issues in context. If you know what went before you can have confidence that the future can be as positive and dramatic.

The following community sites have published HIV timelines that include social, medical and advocacy events.

Most timelines are US-based but every country will have it’s own history:

  • Periods of denial and prejudice.
  • Responses by people living with HIV to organise for their rights to care.
  • Organising for access to treatment and better treatment.

If you have other appropriate links we can include please contact us.

  • AVERT timeline 1959–2020.
  • ACT-UP New York oral history project –188 transcribed interviews with surviving US activists.
  • Early AIDS in the US Online webcast lecture from CROI 2008 by Harold Jaffe that includes scenes from the film ‘And the band played on’ (see 3 Feb). The CROI website has unfortunately been deleted but the reference is still here in case a copy becomes available again.
  • The Names Project US site with a database of 48,000 memorial quilts.

Selected HIV history in film

There are many films that include HIV as a subject and the selection below includes different aspects of the history of HIV and activism.

  • BBC Horizon documentary (1983) (link to youtube access)
  • Common Threads (1989): US documentary about the early US response that includes Bobbi Campbell, Dr Marcus Conant, Vito Russo and stories from the first quilts.
  • And the Band Played On (1993)
  • Philadelphia (1993)
  • Angels in America (2003)
  • Precious (2009)
    The first three films include some of the early years in the USA before there was effective treatment. Precious includes HIV as a theme that is relevant to the USA today.
  • Blue (link to youtube access)
    This is a unique and powerful film by the UK director Derek Jarman about his personal experiences of HIV in England in the 1990s.
  • Fire in the Blood (2013).
    This film is about the struggle to make HIV treatments affordable and accessible to people across the world.
  • How to Survive a Plague (2012) and United in Anger: A history of ACT-UP (2012).
    These two films (both released in 2012) cover different aspects of the history of ACT-UP NYC as a community fight to get access to treatment. (See i-Base review).
  • World Health Organization (WHO) information including a short WHO timeline.
  • The National HIV Story Trust (NHST) – UK oral history and film project recording and preserving the history of those affected by the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 90s.
  • 120 bpm is a French film based on the activist group ACT-UP Paris during the 1980s and 1990s. ACT-UP Paris is still active in 2023. (2017)
  • It’s A Sin: a five-part TV documentary commissioned by Chanel 4 in the UK that dramatises how HIV affects a group of young people during the 1980s. (2021)
  • AIDS: The Unheard Tapes: this three-part documentary produced by the BBC in the UK in 2022 dramatises interviews from 1982. The film fakes extraordinary care to match to actors to the real people who were interviewed, some of who appear as themselves at the end. (2022).