The History of AIDS in the United States

From 1908 until 1960, the Congo was a Belgian colony. The Belgians built miles and miles of railroads in the Congo to better assist their imperial plunder of the land's natural resources. These same railroads and the military personnel who staffed them would help spread HIV-AIDS throughout the country. When these Haitian professionals returned to Haiti, AIDS most likely entered the Western Hemisphere for the first time. This is important for a number of reasons, but one of the primary ones is to understand that pandemics do not occur outside of a social context.