By: HISTORY.com Editors

1974

Dr. Heimlich first publishes his technique for rescuing choking victims

Published: May 30, 2024Last Updated: May 27, 2025

On June 1, 1974, the stop-choking technique invented by Cincinnati surgeon Henry J. Heimlich is published in the medical journal Emergency Medicine. The Heimlich maneuver, which involves thrusting inward and upward on the abdomen of choking victims, becomes the go-to method for saving lives.

Heimlich shared his informal findings in an essay he wrote for the June 1974 issue of the journal called “Pop Goes the Café Coronary.” The term “Café Coronary syndrome” refers to the act of a person choking while eating at a restaurant, and observers thinking the choker is suffering from a heart attack. The established professional medical treatment would be a tracheostomy, which involves the insertion of a large-caliber hypodermic needle into the trachea to provide a temporary airway, something only a doctor can do.

“What’s really needed then is a first-aid procedure that doesn’t require specialized instruments or equipment and can be performed by any informed layman—or even considered by a physician before resorting to tracheostomy with its attendant hazards,” Heimlich wrote in his article. “So, experimentally at least, I have developed such a procedure. It’s been tested only on dogs, but I believe the logic of the concept and the favorable findings warrant public dissemination.”

Experiments were performed on four Beagles, with each getting the same treatment more than 20 times. The dogs responded well, Heimlich wrote, giving him confidence that humans whose windpipes are blocked by a foreign object would have the same results.

The technique went on to save tens of thousands of lives in the next half-century. June 1 is now recognized annually as National Heimlich Maneuver Day.

Timeline

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1779

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1871

Old West outlaw John Wesley Hardin arrives in Abilene, befriends Wild Bill Hickok

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1926

Marilyn Monroe born

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1941

Crete falls to German forces

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1967

The Beatles release “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

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1968

Writer and lecturer Helen Keller dies

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1980

CNN launches

CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network, makes its debut.

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1990

George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev agree to end production of chemical weapons

At a superpowers summit meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign a historic agreement to end production of chemical weapons and begin the destruction of both nations’ sizable reserves of them. According to the agreement, on-site inspectors from both countries would observe the destruction process. The treaty, […]

2004

Opening statements begin in Scott Peterson murder trial

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2008

Universal Studios fire

On June 1, 2008, a massive, early morning fire at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park and studio backlot in Universal City, California destroys a trove of irreplaceable recordings by some of the greatest musical artists in American history, thousands of archived digital and video film copies and King Kong Encounter, one of the park’s […]

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