Health and the People revision timeline

Question 1

When was a free vaccine for TB provided in the UK?

Answer 1

1948

Question 2

When did Canadian surgeon William Bigelow perform the first open-heart surgery to repair a “hole” in a baby’s heart?

Answer 2

1950

Question 3

When did Mexican company Syntex develop norethisterone, a human-made hormone that prevents women ovulating, leading to the production of the first contraceptive pill?

Answer 3

1951

Question 4

When was the first miniature hearing aid produced?

Answer 4

1952

Question 5

When was the first kidney transplant carried out?

Answer 5

1952

Question 6

What was the first kidney transplant in the UK carried out?

Answer 6

1960

Question 7

when did American Leroy Stevens discover stem cells?

Answer 7

1953

Question 8

When did Francis Crick and James Watson map out the DNA structure?

Answer 8

1953

Question 9

When did British scientist Rosalind Franklin photograph DNA?

Answer 9

1951

Question 10

When was the “triple vaccine” (free vaccine for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus) introduced in the UK?

Answer 10

1954

Question 11

When was a free vaccine for polio introduced in the UK?

Answer 11

1955

Question 12

When was the drug thalidomide developed in Germany?

Answer 12

1957

Question 13

When was the first pacemaker fitted?

Answer 13

1958

Question 14

When was the first pacemaker fitted in the UK?

Answer 14

1960

Question 15

When did surgeons at a hospital in America re-attach the arm of a 12-year-old boy?

Answer 15

1962

Question 16

When was a free vaccine for measles introduced in the UK?

Answer 16

1964

Question 17

When did Christian Barnard, a South African heart surgeon, perform the first heart transplant, the patient living for 18 days?

Answer 17

1967

Question 18

When did the first heart transplant occur in the UK? (happened at Papworth Hospital)

Answer 18

1968

Question 19

When was a free vaccine for rubella (German measles) introduced in the UK?

Answer 19

1969

Question 20

When did British scientist Roy Calne develop the drug cyclosporine, preventing the body from rejecting transplanted organs?

Answer 20

1970

Question 21

When did British surgeon Sir John Charnley develop hip replacements?

Answer 21

1972

Question 22

When did British scientist Geoff Hounsfield invent the CAT scanner, using x-ray images to build a 3D image of the inside of the body?

Answer 22

1973

Question 23

When were endoscopes developed?

Answer 23

1975

Question 24

When did Louise Brown, from the UK, become the first “test tube” baby?

Answer 24

1978

Question 25

When was smallpox officially declared eradicated?

Answer 25

1980

Question 26

When were two burn victims given skin grafts at Harvard University in the USA?

Answer 26

1984

Question 27

When did British woman Davina Thompson become the first heart, lung and liver transplant patient?

Answer 27

1986

Question 28

When was the Human Genome Project, funded by the governments of the USA, Britain, Japan, China, France and Canada, as well as drug companies, launched?

Answer 28

1990

Question 29

When was the Human Genome Project declared completed?

Answer 29

2003

Question 30

When did researchers in Scotland breed the first cloned animal, a sheep called Dolly?

Answer 30

1996

Question 31

When did Dolly the sheep die?

Answer 31

February 2003

Question 32

When did American surgeons implant electrodes connected to a miniature computer into the visual cortex of a blind man, allowing him to "see" well enough to drive a car?

Answer 32

2002

Question 33

When was the first HPV (anti-cancer) vaccine approved?

Answer 33

2006

Question 34

When was the first partial face transplant carried out?

Answer 34

2006

Question 35

When was there a huge breakthrough in visual prosthetics with the release of the Argus II prosthetic eye?

Answer 35

2007

Question 36

When was the first full face transplant?

Answer 36

2008

Question 37

When was the first human liver grown from stem cells?

Answer 37

2013

Question 38

When were French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier and American scientist Jennifer Doudna awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of "genetic scissors"?

Answer 38

2020

Question 39

When was the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in the UK?

Answer 39

December 2020