TODAY IN HISTORY

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Today is Thursday, May 5, the 125th day of 2022. There are 240 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America’s first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight aboard Mercury capsule Freedom 7.

On this date:

In 1494, during his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica.

In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte, 51, died in exile on the island of St. Helena.

In 1925, schoolteacher John T. Scopes was charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution. (Scopes was found guilty, but his conviction was later set aside.)

In 1942, wartime sugar rationing began in the United States.

In 1945, in the only fatal attack of its kind during World War II, a Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, killing the pregnant wife of a minister and five children. Denmark and the Netherlands were liberated as a German surrender went into effect.

In 1973, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories.

In 1981, Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland on his 66th day without food.

In 2009, Texas health officials confirmed the first death of a U.S. resident with swine flu.

In 2014, a narrowly divided Supreme Court upheld Christian prayers at the start of local council meetings.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Pat Carroll is 95. Country singer-musician Roni Stoneman is 84. Actor Michael Murphy is 84. Comedian-actor Michael Palin is 79. Rock musician Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) is 74. Broadcast journalist Brian Williams is 63. Actor Tina Yothers is 49. Actor Henry Cavill is 39. Soul singer Adele is 34. R&B singer Chris Brown is 33. Figure skater Nathan Chen is 23.

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