TODAY IN HISTORY

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America’s first space traveler as he made a 15minute suborbital flight aboard Mercury capsule Freedom 7.

Also on this date

In 1925, schoolteacher John T. Scopes was charged in Tennessee with violating a state law that prohibited teaching the theory of evolution. (Scopes was found guilty, but his conviction was set aside.)

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 five children.

In 1945, Denmark and the Netherlands were liberated as a German surrender went into effect.

In 1973, Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby, the first of his Triple Crown victories.

In 1981, Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland on 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.

In 2009, Texas health officials confirmed the first death of a U.S. resident with swine flu.

In 2014, the 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, Facebook said it had removed several accounts and pages linked to QAnon, taking action for the first time against the far-right conspiracy theory circulated among Trump supporters.

Ten years ago: Five Guantanamo Bay prisoners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, were arraigned.

Five years ago: President Donald Trump signed his first piece of major legislation, a $1 trillion spending bill to keep the government running through September.

One year ago: A government report said the U.S. birth rate had fallen by 4% in 2021, the largest single-year decrease in nearly 50 years.

AP Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. is congratulated by crew members on the carrier Lake Champlain after making the first space flight by an American on May 5, 1961.