Today In History

In 1754: A cartoon in Benjamin Franklin’s “Pennsylvania Gazette” showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, “Join or die.”

In 1926: Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to fly over the North Pole.

In 1936: Italy annexed Ethiopia.

In 1960: The Food and Drug Administration approved a pill as safe for birth control use. (The pill, Enovid, was made by G.D. Searle.)

In 1961: Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a “vast wasteland” in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.

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