"There is no society that's been found that didn't practice birth control. It's a universal and eternal practice," says Linda Gordon, PhD, a professor of history at New York University and the author of The Moral Property of Women.



Though archaeologists debate the exact origin of the condom, the earliest known illustration of a man apparently

using one for intercourse was engraved on a cave wall in France about 12,000 years ago. But guys weren't having all the fun. Thousands of years later, ancient Egyptian women began experimenting with contraception of their own: crocodile dung as spermicide. Talk about a mood killer!