Local history

50 years ago: May 9, 1975

Joseph S. Fadale, general manager of the Penn Central Railroad Juniata Shops, personally congratulated the 1,100 employees assembled at the shops for their one million hours without a lost-time accident, a national record for railroads.

25 years ago: May 9, 2000

Thousands of Pennsylvania residents were crossing the border with Maryland to buy $1 lottery tickets called The Big Game with a $325 million prize, the largest in lottery history. PA was not one of seven states in The Big Game.

10 years ago: May 9, 2015

After two years at the Jaffa Mosque, the Sci-Fi Valley Con was moving to the Blair County Convention Center over three days, Casey Bassett promoter and founder. At least 206 vendors were to be featured, up from 140 the previous year.

— Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is Friday, May 9, the 129th day of 2025. There are 236 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

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:

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

n In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

– In 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.

– In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened public hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. (The committee ultimately adopted three articles of impeachment against the president, who resigned before the full House took up any of them.)

– In 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.

– In 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.

— The Associated Press