George Rosenkranz, the chemist who changed the world with 'the pill,' dies at 102

It was 1951 in Mexico City, and George Rosenkranz and two colleagues were hard at work creating a synthetic hormone they hoped would help prevent pregnant women from having a miscarriage.

Their work, though, was far more profound than any of them initially realized. The hormone they were tinkering with, it turned out, also prevented pregnancies.

For a chemist, it was an astonishing discovery. For baby boomer America, it was the unleashing of a cultural mega-storm, a brand new world where women could decide when and if they wanted to be pregnant, and a time when politicians, religious