TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY 125th day IS of SATURDAY, 2018. There MAY are 240 5, the days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1862, Mexican troops defeated French occupying forces in the Battle of Puebla. In 1494, during his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica. In 1818, political philosopher Karl Marx, co-author of “The Communist Manifesto” and author of “Das Kapital,” was born in Prussia. In 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte, 51, died in exile on the island of St. Helena. In 1892, Congress passed the Geary Act, which required Chinese in the United States to carry a certificate of residence at all times, or face deportation. In 1927, “To the Lighthouse,” Virginia Woolf’s fifth novel, was published in London. 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 1955, West Germany became a fully sovereign state. The baseball musical “Damn Yankees,” starring Stephen Douglass as Joe Hardy, Gwen Verdon as Lola and Ray Walston as Applegate, opened on Broadway. In 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.
In 1978, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream had its beginnings as Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream parlor at a converted gas station in Burlington, Vt.
In 1981, Irish Republican Army hungerstriker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in his 66th day without food.
In 1994, Singapore caned American teenager Michael Fay for vandalism, a day after the sentence was reduced from six lashes to four in response to an appeal by President Bill Clinton.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actress Pat Carroll is 91. Former AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney and saxophonist Ace Cannon are 84. Country singer-musician Roni Stoneman and actor Michael Murphy are 80. Actor Lance Henriksen is 78. Comedian-actor Michael Palin is 75. Actor John Rhys-Davies is 74. Rock correspondent Kurt Loder is 73. Rock musician Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) is 70. Actress Melinda Culea is 63. Actress Lisa Eilbacher and actor Richard E. Grant are 61. Former broadcast journalist John Miller is 60. Rock singer Ian McCulloch (Echo and the Bunnymen) and NBC newsman Brian Williams are 59. Rock musician Shawn Drover (Megadeth) is 52. TV personality Kyan Douglas is 48. Actress Tina Yothers is 45. Rhythm and blues singer Raheem DeVaughn is 43. Actor Santiago Cabrera is 40. Actor Vincent Kartheiser is 39. Singer Craig David and actress Danielle Fishel are 37. Actor Henry Cavill is 35. Actor Clark Duke is 33. Soul singer Adele and rock singer Skye Sweetnam are 30. Rhythm-and-blues singer Chris Brown is 29. Figure skater Nathan Chen is 19.