TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 5
1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire
1494 Christopher Columbus 1st sights Jamaica on his 2nd voyage to the New World which he names Santa Gloria.
1809 Mary Kies of South Killingly, Conn., became the first woman to be granted a patent. The patent was for the rights to a technique for weaving straw with silk and thread.
1814 British attack the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.
1847 American Medical Association organized (Philadelphia)
1862 Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.
1863 Joe Coburn KOs Mike McCoole for US boxing title in 63rd round
1867 Battle of Pueblo; Mexicans defeat Maximilian’s forces (Cinco de Mayo)
1886 A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers’ strike in Chicago.
1893 Panic of 1893: Great crash on New York Stock Exchange
1916 U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
1920 Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested for murder.
1925 John Scopes was arrested in Tennessee for teaching Darwinism.
1934 The first Three Stooges film is released
1936 Edward Ravenscroft patents screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip
1955 West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers
1961 Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.
1971 Race riot in Brownsville section of Brooklyn (NYC)
1980 Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends as the SAS and police storm the building
1987 Congress opens Iran-Contra hearings.
2000 The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align – Earth’s moon is also almost in this alignment – leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a ‘grand confluence’ occurs about once in every century.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
