Today’s Highlights

On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conditionally approved Enovid for use as the first oral contraceptive pill.

On this date

1754: The famous political cartoon “Join or Die” was first published by Benjamin Franklin in the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper.

1914: President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

1951: The U.S. 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.

1974: The House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

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.

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.

2023: A jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in damages.

Today’s birthdays

Producer-director James L. Brooks is 85. Musician-songwriter Sonny Curtis is 88. Actor Candice Bergen is 79. Musician Billy Joel is 76. Actor John Corbett is 64. Singer Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) is 63. Rapper Ghostface Killah is 55.