Luis Miramontes invents The Pill

Love it or hate it, Luis Miramontes’ invention has pervaded mainstream culture enough to turn a generic noun into a name — “The Pill.” In decoupling procreation from the act, it has revolutionized relations among the youth — coming, as it did, at the outset of the tumultuous 60s decade — along with empowering women to exert more control over their body and their fertility. All of these consequences were likely the furthest thing from the young chemist’s mind when in a laboratory in Mexico City he developed the Pill prototype.

On this day, October 15, in 1951, 26 year-old Luis Miramontes, conducting his undergraduate bachelor’s thesis work at the Syntex laboratories in Mexico, synthesized a new complex molecule, norethindrone, which turned out to be the first synthetic oral contraceptive ever made.

The norethindrone chemical is still used in contraceptive pills today, and was voted one of the most influential chemicals in the history of human kind. The U.S. Department of Patents considers contraceptive pills among the 40 most important inventions between 1794 and 1964.