TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Friday, May 5, the 125th day of 2017. There are 240 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On May 5, 1862, Mexican troops defeated French occupying forces in the Battle of Puebla.
On this date
1494 — During his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica. 1821 — Napoleon Bonaparte, 51, died in exile on the island of St. Helena. 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. 1927 — “To the Lighthouse,” Virginia Woolf’s fifth novel, was published in London. 1942 — Wartime sugar rationing began in the United States. 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. 1973 — Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories. 1981 — Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in his 66th day without food. 1987 — The congressional Iran-Contra hearings opened with former Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord the lead-off witness. 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.
Five years ago
Five Guantanamo Bay prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, were arraigned in a proceeding that dragged on for 13 hours due to stalling tactics by the defendants.
One year ago
Former Los Angeles trash collector Lonnie Franklin Jr. was convicted of 10 counts of murder in the “Grim Sleeper” serial killings that targeted poor, young black women over two decades.
President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of 58 federal convicts, part of a broader push to ease punishments for nonviolent drug offenders.
Today’s Birthday
Actress Pat Carroll is 90. Former AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney is 83. Actor John Rhys-Davies is 73. Rock correspondent Kurt Loder is 72. Rock musician Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) is 69. Rock musician Shawn Drover (Megadeth) is 51. Actress Tina Yothers is 44. Actor Henry Cavill is 34. Soul singer Adele is 29. Rhythm-and-blues singer Chris Brown is 28.