Today is the thirty-fourth anniversary of the official certification that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide. From Wikipedia,

The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists on 9 December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980. The first two sentences of the resolution read:

Having considered the development and results of the global program on smallpox eradication initiated by WHO in 1958 and intensified since 1967 … Declares solemnly that the world and its peoples have won freedom from smallpox, which was a most devastating disease sweeping in epidemic form through many countries since earliest time, leaving death, blindness and disfigurement in its wake and which only a decade ago was rampant in Africa, Asia and South America.

Archaeological evidence shows evidence of smallpox infection in the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs. There was a Hindu goddess of smallpox in ancient India. By the 16th century it was a pandemic throughout the Old World, and epidemics with mortality rates of 30% were common. When smallpox arrived in the New World, there were epidemics among Native Americans with mortality rates of 80-90%. By the 18th century it was pretty much everywhere except Australia and New Zealand, which successfully used intensive screening of travelers and cargo to avoid infection.

The smallpox vaccine was one of the first ever developed, by English physician Edward Jenner in 1798. Vaccination programs in the wealthy countries made a dent in the pandemic, so that by WWI the disease was mostly gone in North America and Europe. The Pan-American Health Organization had eradicated smallpox in the Western hemisphere by 1950, but there were still 50 million cases per year, of which 2 million were fatal, mostly in Africa and India.

In 1959, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution to eradicate smallpox worldwide. They used ring vaccination to surround and contain outbreaks, and little by little the number of cases dropped. The last naturally-occurring case was found in October 1975, in a two-year-old Bangladeshi girl named Rahima Banu, who recovered after medical attention by a WHO team. For the next four years, the WHO searched for more cases (in vain) before declaring the eradication program successful.

Smallpox scarred, blinded, and killed countless billions of people, on five continents, for hundreds to thousands of years, and now it is gone. It did not go away on its own. Highly trained doctors invented, then perfected a vaccine, other engineers found ways to manufacture it very cheaply, and lots of other serious, dedicated people resolved to vaccinate each vulnerable human being on the surface of the Earth, and then went out and did it.

Because Smallpox Eradication Day marks one of the most heroic events in the history of the human species, it is not surprising that it has become a major global holiday in the past few decades, instead of inexplicably being an obscure piece of trivia I had to look up on Wikipedia. I'm just worried that as time goes on it's going to get too commercialized. If you're going to a raucous SE Day party like I am, have fun and be safe.