This year marks the 30 th anniversary of the 1976 American Legion convention of military veterans held in Philadelphia. A mysterious disease outbreak occurred that killed 34 people and debilitated nearly another 200. The media named it Legionnaires’ Disease. In early 1977, the cause of the outbreak had been proven to be a previously unknown waterborne pathogenic bacterium subsequently named Legionella. The bacterium was scientifi cally proven to have caused widespread endemic pneumonia since 1943 and caused outbreaks as far back as the 1950s.