Daniel Hale Williams was a pioneer in surgery and is best known for performing one of the world’s first successful open-heart surgeries in 1893. Born on January 18, 1856, in Hollidaysburg ...

Often we are negligent and prone to take things for granted — two of which are the ability to attend schools and exceptional health care. That n ...

In 1893, a Black man named Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, affectionately known as “Dr. Dan” performed the first successful open heart surgery in America.

In Chicago, Illinois, at Provident Hospital in 1893, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed open heart surgery on a patient who had suffered multiple chest stab wounds.

Without antibiotics, adequate anesthesia or many of the tools used in modern-day heart surgery, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams cut a small hole into Cornish’s chest using a scalpel.