Today in History: May 9, FDA approves first birth control pill

Boston Globe

09-05-2025

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
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In 1951, the US conducted its first thermonuclear experiment as part of Operation Greenhouse by detonating a 225-kiloton device, nicknamed 'George,' on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
In 1960, the US Food and Drug Administration conditionally approved Enovid for use as the first oral contraceptive pill.
In 1962, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in reflecting a laser beam off the surface of the moon.
In 1974, 'I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.' So wrote Jon Landau in his review in The Real Paper after the then-little known songwriter-singer opened for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theater on this date. The mesmerizing performance and Landau's ecstatic response would catapult the young New Jersey rocker to recognition in Rolling Stone and, eventually, across the music world. Also on this date, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon. (The committee ultimately adopted three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)
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In 1980, 35 people were killed when a freighter rammed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida, causing a 1,300-foot section of the southbound span to collapse.
In 2019, Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.
In 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in damages.