Pop culture moments that changed the perception of HIV/AIDS.

In a photo provided by Keith Sherman and Associates, the cast of "Rent" is pictured in this 1996 file photo at New York's Nederlander Theater. Rent," the acclaimed musical chronicle of counterculture life and death in Manhattan's East Village, will close in June after more than a dozen years on Broadway, The New York Times reported Wednesday, Jan. 16. 2008. (AP Photo/ho/Keith Sherman and Associates/file)

“Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” ran the headline of the New York Timesstory in July 1981. One of the first news reports about HIV/AIDS to appear in a major mainstream publication, the article referred to what would initially be called…