- 1457 BCE - Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC) between Thutmose III and a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh. It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail.
- 1671 – Irish-born Colonel Thomas Blood was caught trying to steal the English Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
- 1901 – The first Parliament of Australia opened in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
- 1941 - World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.
- 1945 – End of World War II in Europe: The signing of a second German Instrument of Surrender by General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, specifying the military surrender of all German forces to the high commands of the Soviet Army and Allied Expeditionary Force, was announced.
- 1950 – French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented the Schuman Declaration, a proposal to place France's and West Germany's coal and steel industries under joint management, triggering a series of events that eventually led to the founding of the European Union.
- 1950 – Speculative fiction author L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was first published, describing his self-improvement techniques known as Dianetics.
- 1960 - The U.S. FDA announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle's Enovid, making Enovid the world's first approved oral contraceptive pill. More than any other discovery, this liberated women.
Picture of the Day 
The Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is the only mockingbird commonly found in North America. It breeds in southeastern Canada, the United States, northern Mexico, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and the Greater Antilles. This species has occurred in Europe as an extreme rarity.
05-08-2008, 09:06 PM
On This Day (May 9) 
