THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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    Publish date:
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    Year
    1960

    FDA approves "the pill"

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world’s first commercially produced birth-control bill–Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.

    Development of “the pill,” as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time.

    In the early 1950s, Gregory Pincus, a biochemist at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard Medical School, began work on a birth-control pill. Clinical tests of the pill, which used synthetic progesterone and estrogen to repress ovulation in women, were initiated in 1954. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the pill, granting greater reproductive freedom to American women.

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    ALSO ON THIS DAY

    Lead Story
    1950

    L. Ron Hubbard publishes "Dianetics"

    On this day in 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system called ...read more

    Disaster
    2001

    Soccer fans trampled in Ghana

    On this day in 2001, during a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, an encounter between police and rowdy fans results in a stampede that kills 126 people. This tragedy was the worst-ever sports-related disaster in Africa’s history to that time. The Accra Hearts of Oak, ...read more

    Crime
    1997

    Andrew Cunanan continues murder spree

    The body of William Reese, 45, a cemetery caretaker, is found in rural Pennsville, New Jersey, on May 9, 1997. He had been shot in the head with a Golden Saber .38-caliber bullet. Police soon determined that the killer was Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year-old man already wanted for ...read more

    Cold War
    1955

    West Germany joins NATO

    Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany’s integration into the ...read more