Wednesday, May 05th
The 125th day of 2010.
There are 240 days left in the year.
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Today's Highlights in History
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On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Go to article.)
On May 5, 1864, Nellie Bly, the American newspaper writer who challenged herself in an around-the-world race, was born. Following her death on Jan. 27, 1922, her obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day
On May 5, 1860, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)
On this date in:
1818 Political philosopher Karl Marx was born in Prussia.
1821 Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St. Helena.
1892 Congress extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for 10 years.
1893 Panic hit the New York Stock Exchange; by year's end, the country was in the throes of a severe depression.
1904 Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched the first perfect game in modern major league baseball history in a 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics.
1925 John T. Scopes was arrested in Tennessee for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
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.
1955 West Germany became a sovereign state.
1955 The baseball musical "Damn Yankees" opened on Broadway.
1981 Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died in prison in Northern Ireland on his 66th day without food.
1985 President Ronald Reagan attended a wreath-laying ceremony at a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany. The visit drew worldwide condemnation because 49 members of the Waffen SS were buried there.
2000 Reformers swept Iran's run-off elections, winning control of the legislature from conservatives for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
2002 French President Jacques Chirac was re-elected in a landslide victory over extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
2009 Texas health officials confirmed the first death of a U.S. resident with swine flu.
Current Birthdays
Brian Williams turns 51 years old today.
AP Photo/Evan Agostini NBC News anchor Brian Williams turns 51 years old today.
83 Pat Carroll
Actress
76 John Sweeney
AFL-CIO president
67 Michael Palin
Actor, comedian (Monty Python)
66 Roger Rees
Actor, director
66 John Rhys-Davies
Actor
65 Kurt Loder
Music journalist (MTV)
52 John Miller
Assistant FBI director, former journalist
40 Kyan Douglas
TV personality ("Queer Eye for the Straight Guy")
37 Tina Yothers
Actress ("Family Ties")
29 Craig David
Rock singer
22 Adele
Soul singer
21 Chris Brown
R&B singer
Historic Birthdays
Nellie Bly
5/5/1864 - 1/27/1922
American journalist and adventurer
(Go to obit.)
77 Arthur L. Schawlow
5/5/1921 - 4/28/1999
American Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1981)
44 Leopold II
5/5/1747 - 3/1/1792
Holy Roman emperor (1790-92)
79 Frederick Barnard
5/5/1809 - 4/27/1889
American president of Columbia College (1864-1889)
42 Soren Kierkegaard
5/5/1813 - 11/11/1855
Danish religious philosopher
64 Karl Marx
5/5/1818 - 3/14/1883
German political philosopher and economist; wrote "The Communist Manifesto"
85 Hubert Howe Bancroft
5/5/1832 - 3/2/1918
American historian of the American West
60 Peter Cooper Hewitt
5/5/1861 - 8/25/1921
American electrical engineer; invented the mercury-vapor lamp
66 Christopher Morley
5/5/1890 - 3/28/1957
American novelist and columnist for the Saturday Review (1924-41)
76 Dorothy Garrod
5/5/1892 - 12/18/1968
English archaeologist
82 Sir Gordon Richards
5/5/1904 - 11/10/1986
English jockey and racehorse trainer
44 Tyrone Power
5/5/1914 - 11/15/1958
American motion-picture and stage actor
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