A Brief History of Birth Control

1550 B.C.
An Egyptian manuscript called the Ebers Papyrus directs women on how to mix dates, acacia and honey into a paste, smear it over wool and use it as a pessary to prevent conception

Casanova's memoirs detail his experiments in birth control, from sheep-bladder condoms to the use of half a lemon as a makeshift cervical cap

Charles Goodyear invents the technology to vulcanize rubber and puts it to use manufacturing rubber condoms, intrauterine devices, douching syringes and "womb veils"

Congress passes an antiobscenity law that deems birth control info obscene and outlaws its dissemination. At the time, the U.S. is the only Western nation to criminalize contraception

A large cervical cap is developed--an early version of the diaphragm

Margaret Sanger opens America's first family-planning clinic, in Brooklyn. It is shut down within 10 days

Sanger founds the American Birth Control League, which later becomes the Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Anglican bishops approve limited use of birth control; Pope Pius XI affirms church teaching against contraception

A judge lifts the federal obscenity ban on birth control, but contraception remains illegal in most states

Prompted by Sanger, Gregory Pincus begins research on the use of hormones in contraception. In Mexico City, chemist Carl Djerassi creates a progesterone pill