May 9
1429 - Joan of Arc defeated the besieging English at Orleans.
1502 - Christopher Columbus left Spain for his final trip to the Western Hemisphere.
1671 - Thomas "Captain" Blood stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.
1754 - The first newspaper cartoon in America showed a divided snake "Join or die" in "The Pennsylvania Gazette."
1785 - Joseph Bramah patented the beer-pump handle.
1825 - The Chatham Theatre opened in New York City. It was the first gas-lit theater in America.
1901 - In Australia, the Duke of Cornwall and York declared the First Commonwealth Parliament open.
1904 - The Great Western Railway Number 3440 City of Truro became the first railway locomotive to exceed 100 miles per hour.
1914 - U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint congressional resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
1915 - German and French forces fought the Battle of Artois.
1926 - Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to fly an airplane over the North Pole.
1930 - A starting gate was used to start a Triple Crown race for the first time.
1936 - Fascist Italy took Addis Abba and annexed Ethiopia.
1936 - The first sheet of postage stamps of more than one variety went on sale in New York City.
1940 - Vivien Leigh debuted in America on stage in "Romeo and Juliet" with Lawrence Olivier.
1941 - The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by Britain's Royal navy.
1945 - U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.
1946 - King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicated and was replaced by Umberto.
1951 - The U.S. conducted its first thermonuclear experiment under Operation Greenhouse. "George," a 225-kiloton device, was detonated on Enewetak Atok in the Marshall Islands.
1955 - West Germany joined NATO.
1958 - Richard Burton made his network television debut in the presentation of "Wuthering Heights" on CBS-TV.
1960 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for sale an oral birth-control pill for the first time.
1961 - Jim Gentile (Baltimore Orioles) set a major league baseball record when he hit a grand slam home run in two consecutive innings. The game was against the Minnesota Twins.
1962 - Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technologay successfully bounced a laser beam off Moon for the first time.
1974 - The House Judiciary Committee began formal hearings on the Nixon impeachment.
1978 - The bullet-riddled body of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was found in an automobile in the center of Rome. The Red Brigades had abducted him.
1980 - A Liberian freighter hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida. Thirty-five motorists were killed and a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed.
1987 - Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers were married.
1994 - Nelson Mandela was chosen to be South Africa's first black president.
1996 - In video testimony to a courtroom in Little Rock, AR, U.S. President Clinton insisted that he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan in the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.
2002 - In Bethlehem, West Bank, a deal was reached that would end the 38-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity. Thirteen suspected militants were to be deported to several different countries. The standoff had begun on April 2, 2002.
2002 - In Kaspiisk, Russia, 39 people were killed and at least 130 were injurde when a remote-controlled bomb exploded during a holiday parade.
2002 - In Bahrain, people were allowed to vote for representatives for the first time in nearly 30 years. Women were allowed to vote for the first time in the country's history.
2019 - Pope Francis issued a new church law that required all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.
2020 - In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration approved a coronavirus antigen test that could quickly detect virus proteins.
