In June, 1981, a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) article briefly described five cases of Pneumocystis pneumonia among homosexual men in Los Angeles (CA, USA). This case series, which provides the first description of what came to be known as AIDS, takes just a minute or so to read but was the first tremor of a seismic upheaval in global health that continues to reverberate four decades on.