Daniel Hale Williams was an American general surgeon who was also the first surgeon who successfully performed and documented a pericardium surgery. Daniel was born in Pennsylvania and was of mixed parentage. He was the fifth child in a working-class family that struggled to make ends meet. His father died when Daniel was 9 years old. As his mother was unable to take care of all her children alone, she sent a few of them away to live with their relatives. Daniel was also sent away, but he returned to his mother and finished his schooling in Maryland. He studied at the ‘Chicago Medical College’ and opened his medical clinic in Illinois, Chicago. At that time, black doctors were not allowed to work in government hospitals. Thus, Daniel laid the foundation of ‘Provident Hospital’ and a training school for nurses in Chicago. In July 1893, he became the first surgeon on record to successfully perform a pericardium surgery to heal a wound. Later that year, he was made the surgeon-in-chief of the ‘Freedman’s Hospital’ located in Washington, D.C. He also served as a co-founder of the ‘National Medical Association’ and as a professor of clinical surgery at the ‘Meharry Medical College’ in Nashville, Tennessee.