TODAY IN HISTORY

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.

1925

Schoolteacher John T. Scopes was charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution.

1942

Wartime sugar rationing began in the United States.

1945w

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.

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.