TODAY IN HISTORY

THURSDAY MAY 5, 2022 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.

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.

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.

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 on 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.

2009

Texas health officials confirmed the first death of a U.S. resident with swine flu.

2014

A narrowly divided Supreme Court upheld Christian prayers at the start of local council meetings.

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.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Actor Pat Carroll is 95. Country singer-musician Roni Stoneman is 84. Actor Michael Murphy is 84. Actor Lance Henriksen is 82. Comedian-actor Michael Palin is 79. Actor John Rhys-davies is 78. Rock correspondent Kurt Loder is 77. Rock musician Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) is 74. Actor Melinda Culea is 67. Actor Lisa Eilbacher is 65.