TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, MAY 5, the 125th day of 2022. There are 240 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date 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 1494, during his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica.

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 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.

In 2016, 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.

In 2020, Tyson Foods said it would resume limited operation of its huge pork-processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, with enhanced safety measures, more than two weeks after closing the facility because of a coronavirus outbreak among workers. Facebook said it had removed several accounts and pages linked to QAnon, taking action for the first time against the far-right conspiracy theory circulated among Trump supporters.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Rock singer Ian McCulloch (Echo and the Bunnymen) and broadcast journalist Brian Williams are 63. Soul singer Adele and rock singer Skye Sweetnam are 34. R&B singer Chris Brown is 33. Figure skater Nathan Chen is 23.