https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/hiv-aids-crisis-timeline

1980

"A Gay Men's Crisis"

April 24 – The CDC receives a report on Ken Horne, a gay man living in San Francisco who is suffering from Kaposi’s Sarcoma, a rare and unusually aggressive cancer linked with weakened immunity. Horne dies on November 30, 1981. The same year, the CDC retroactively identifies Horne as the first American patient of the AIDS epidemic. ​​​​​​

May 18 – Lawrence Mass, a gay doctor in New York City, writes an article for The New York Native, an LGBT newspaper, titled “Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded.” Although the headline would soon be proven false, his report that a number of gay men have been admitted to New York City intensive care unites with severely compromised immune systems is the first article to mention what soon becomes known as AIDS.

June 5, 1981 – The CDC publishes an article describing five cases of a rare lung infection in young, otherwise healthy gay men in Los Angeles, two of whom have died and three of whom die a short time after. The same day, New York City dermatologist Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien reports a cluster of instances of Kaposi’s Sarcoma in gay men in New York and California. Several major outlets report on the article, and the CDC begins to receive a steady trickle of reports of similar cases. This article is often cited as the official beginning of the AIDS Crisis.

July 1981 – An LGBT newspaper in San Francisco, The Bay Area Reporter, writes about “Gay Men’s Pneumonia” and urges gay men experiencing shortness of breath to see a doctor. The New York Times article “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals” leads to the coining of the term “gay cancer” to describe Kaposi’s Sarcoma.

August 11, 1981 – Writer and film producer Larry Kramer hosts a fundraiser in his New York City apartment, at which Dr. Friedman-Kien addresses a crowd of gay men. He raises $6,635 to fund research into the mysterious new illness, the only money raised for the cause in 1981. Kramer soon co-founds the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), a community-based non-profit dedicated to serving the community throughout the emerging crisis.