Daniel Hale Williams Performs First Successful Open-Heart Surgery

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a Howard University-trained surgeon in Chicago, successfully sutures the pericardium of a stabbing victim — the first documented successful open-heart surgery in the world. The patient, James Cornish, survived and lived another 20 years. Williams had also founded Provident Hospital in 1891, the first Black-owned hospital in the U.S.