TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, May 5, the 125th day of 2018. 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. 1818 — Political philosopher Karl Marx, co-author of “The Communist Manifesto” and author of “Das Kapital,” was born in Prussia. 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 U.S. 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. 1955 — West Germany became a fully sovereign state. 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. 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, Vermont. 1981 — Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in his 66th day without food. 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
In Afghanistan, seven Americans and one German soldier were killed in three separate attacks.
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, seriously wounded in a 2011 shooting at a Tucson, Arizona, shopping mall, received the 2013 Profile in Courage award at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
Today’s Birthdays
Actress Pat Carroll is 91. Former AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney is 84. Saxophonist Ace Cannon is 84. Country singer-musician Roni Stoneman is 80. Actor Michael Murphy is 80. Actor Lance Henriksen is 78. Comedianactor 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 is 61. Actor Richard E. Grant is 61. Former broadcast journalist John Miller is 60. Rock singer Ian McCulloch (Echo and the Bunnymen) is 59. NBC newsman Brian Williams is 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 is 37. Actress Danielle Fishel is 37. Actor Henry Cavill is 35. Actor Clark Duke is 33. Soul singer Adele is 30. Rock singer Skye Sweetnam is 30. Rhythm-and-blues singer Chris Brown is 29. Figure skater Nathan Chen is 19.
NOTE: Starting Thursday, Rome News-Tribune will no longer be publishing local birthdays in Today In History. Please turn in any birthdays for the final day, Wednesday, by 3 p.m. on Tuesday.