On May 9, 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system called Scientology. On May 9, 1945, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, head of the Gestapo and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria. At the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Goering was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he killed himself by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards. On May 9, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the commercial marketing of Envoid-10. It is the world’s first commercially produced birth-control pill, and will quickly become known simply as "The Pill." In the early hours of May 9, 1970, a frazzled President Richard Nixon embarks upon what his Chief of Staff will describe as "the weirdest day so far" of his presidency. It is days after the Kent State shootings, and anti-war protests and general unrest has quickly spread to college campuses across the nation. The reports are disturbing Nixon's sleep, and at 4am, he wakes his personal valet, Manolo Sanchez and asks him if he's ever seen the Lincoln Memorial at night. Knowing he would encounter a crowd of student protesters that had camped out on the National Mall, Nixon set off with Sanchez, his physician and a Secret Service team. Accounts of what happen next vary, but Nixon spent at least an hour at the memorial speaking with protesters, who would describe the encounter as "civil." One protester's account to a reporter indicated Nixon tried to engage in friendly conversation, but suggested Nixon was so tired he was barely coherent. In addition to the war, Nixon talked to protesters about overseas travel and , of course, football. Chief of Staff H.R. Halderman would write in his diary later that the war was also discussed, but neither side convinced the other their views were correct.
On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. Americans can now travel from one coast to the other completely by rail, eliminating the need for long and dangerous journeys by wagon trains. On May 10, 1865, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, is captured by Union cavalry along with his wife near Irwinville, GA. Davis is wearing his wife’s black shawl at the time, leading northern press to report that he was dressed as a woman to escape capture. Both Davis and his wife, Varina, maintained that he was ill and that Varina had lent him her shawl to keep his warm. Davis spent two years imprisoned at Ft. Monroe, VA awaiting trial for treason, before federal judges decided not to prosecute, fearing Davis might be able to prove the Southern secession was legal. He retired to Mississippi, where he wrote his memoirs before dying in 1889. On May 10, 1924, J. Edgar Hoover is named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI), an appointment made official before the end of the year. Hoover would spend 48 years as director; becoming arguably the most powerful non-elected American of the 20th century. But information leaked after his death in 1972 indicated Hoover's power lay very much in corruption, such as deporting suspected communists during the Red Scare of the 1910s and illegal surveillance of civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr. On May 10, 1970, Boston Bruins star Bobby Orr scores the winning goal in overtime against the St. Louis Blues to win the Stanley Cup. Orr was tripped as he took the shot, but realized he had scored even before he fell to the ice. Boston Record American photographer Ray Lussier was just feet away and caught the moment in perhaps the most iconic photo in NHL history. On May 10, 1863, the complexion of the Civil War is drastically altered when 39-year-old Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson dies of pneumonia a week after being accidentally shot by his own men at Chancellorsville, VA. A native Virginian and West Point graduate who retired from the service to teach at the Virginia Military Institute, Jackson was appointed brigadier general in the Confederate Army, soon rising to become Lee's most effective Corps commander before his unfortunate demise.
Jefferson Davis died in New Orleans. There’s a plaque in front of the Garden District house where he died.
On May 11, 1812, British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is shot to death in the lobby of the House of Commons. His assassin, businessman John Bellingham, was inflamed by Perceval's failure to obtain government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia. Bellingham gave himself up immediately and was executed a week later, even after having been ruled insane. On May 11, 1969, the battle for Hill 937 - "Hamburger Hill" - begins in the A Shau Valley of Vietnam. Elements of the 101st Airborne Division would spend 10 days taking the hill from hardened North Vietnamese troops. Less than a week after its capture, the army abandoned the hill, stating it had no strategic value. The cost was 72 dead, more than 350 wounded, and a firestorm of criticism against the Nixon Administration for the "senseless and irresponsible" (Senator Ted Kennedy's words) waste of life. On May 11, 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta. The storm - coming at the height of the "Dust Bowl" drought - reportedly caused dust to collect on ships as far as 300 miles out in the Atlantic. On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games to one, with three draws. Kasparov was the current world chess champion - the youngest in history - and had successfully defended his title 12 times. Deep Blue had been developed 8 years earlier and was capable of calculating more than 100 billion moves over 3 minutes. Witnesses were surprised - Kasparov had never resigned a match, and while on the defensive, his position was still playable. Kasparov simply said, "I lost my fighting spirit.”
On May 12, 1932, the body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh's baby is found, more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell, New Jersey, mansion. The baby was found less than a mile from the home, and evidence suggests he was killed the night of the kidnapping. Investigation would lead to the arrest, conviction and execution of German immigrant Bruno Hauptfmann. On May 12, 1942, U-507 is in the midst of terrorizing the Gulf Coast, sinking ships first near the Florida Keys and then working up the coast. On this night the lone wolf U-boat pulls off its most audacious attack, sinking the 10,000 ton USS Virginia as it exits the mouth of the Mississippi, killing all 27 aboard. It is the largest of 10 ships the U-507 torpedoed in the Gulf over 17 days, sinking 9 of them. (U-507, seen from the conning tower of another U-boat in Sept. 1942) On May 12, 1780, 3,000 Continental Army troops under General Benjamin Lincoln surrender to the British, following a 40 day siege of Charleston, SC. On May 12, 1957, race car driver A.J. Foyt scores his first professional victory in a U.S. Automobile Club (USAC) midget car race in Kansas City, MO. Foyt will go on to become the most successful driver in USAC history, with 7 championships and 67 wins, and was the first to record 4 wins in the Indy 500. He will become the first driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500 and the 24 Hours of LeMans, and was the first driver inducted into the MotorSports Hall of Fame. On May 12, 1963, a young and still unkown singer named Bob Dylan blows his chance to play for a national audience by walking off the set of The Ed Sullivan Show. Dylan had but a single album to his credit at the time, which did well enough to catch starmaker Sullivan's attention. But the CBS Standards and Practices department objected to Dylan's song choice for the appearance, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues." The blues tune mocked the John Birch Society's tendency to see a Communist conspiracy under every rock. Dylan auditioned the song a few days earlier for Sullivan, who had no problem with the choice. But in dress rehearsals the day of the show, Standards and Practices objected to some of the lyrics, stepping in and demanding Dylan either change the lyrics or choose another song. Dylan chose door number 3 and bowed out politely, though his publicist would put the word out that Dylan angrily stormed off the set. The free publicity may have done him as much good as performing, because he would soon land an invitation to perform during Martin Luther King's March on Washington that summer, a performance that helped launch him into the 60's mainstream.
