1. 33 years ago today, Elizabeth Taylor walked into a Senate hearing & spoke of "a national scandal, a scandal of neglect, indifference & abandonment" She did what no other major public figure was willing to do: she demanded that elected officials pay attention to the AIDS crisis

2. Dame Elizabeth spoke truth to power at a time when many people still believed that someone could contract HIV by touching someone or even being in the same room with them. She put everything on the line and used all of her star power to fight for funding when few cared.

3. Dame Elizabeth faced death threats and was shunned by friends and powerful people who told her she was making a mistake. Instead of going quiet, she ran an illegal safe house in her home for people living with HIV and sold some of her jewelry to fund her efforts