[goofywife]

Here ya go Kat!!

1974: Nixon impeachment hearings begin
The House Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings against President Richard M. Nixon today for his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. The committee met in a closed session to review a briefcase of evidence relating to Nixon's role in the scandal.

The Oakland Tribune explained that "the committee would begin its hearings by considering materials relating to the question of President Nixon's responsibility for the Watergate break-in and its subsequent investigation by law enforcement agencies."

NOTE: Instead of facing an impeachment trial, Nixon announced his resignation on national television on August 8, 1974. His resignation did not make him immune to criminal prosecution, but his successor, Gerald Ford, issued a controversial pardon which protected him.

1970: War protesters rally near White House
About 100,000 war protesters gathered just south of the White House in Washington, D.C., to express their opposition to the Vietnam war. today. "College students angered by U.S. intervention in Cambodia and the killing of four Kent State University students by Ohio National Guardsmen made up the bulk of the thousands," reported The Post Standard on May 9, 1970.


1960: FDA approves birth control pill
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill for contraceptive use, called Envoid, today. The Syracuse Herald Journal described this new development 35 years later on May 10, 1995: "To imagine just how different American society was when the FDA allowed the birth control pill to be marketed in 1960, there was then no uniform contraceptive law. It was not until 1965 - when the pill's popularity was soaring - that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the use of contraceptives by married couples as part of their constitutional right to privacy. That right was not extended to individuals until 1972."

1955: West Germany joins NATO
West Germany became the 15th member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization today during a ceremony in Paris. "Chancellor Konrad Adenauer took his place at the NATO council table for the first time in a public session in the Palais de Chaillot," explained the Great Bend Daily Tribune on May 9, 1955. "For the 79-year-old West German statesman the ceremony marked a culminating stage in his long and difficult campaign to enroll his countrymen as an equal partner in the ranks of the free world's democracies."

1926: Byrd takes off for the North Pole
Commander Richard Byrd and his companion for the flight, Floyd Bennett, were honored as the first to fly an airplane to the North Pole. However, throughout the years there have been a number of doubts about their true accomplishment. In 1999, the Syracuse Herald Journal reported that archivists found a diary that Byrd kept on the flight, which cast doubt on the calculations that the men used to establish the location of the pole during their flyover.