On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel
into space.
The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached
a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph
for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The view from Freedom 7.
Cinco de Mayo , (Spanish for "Fifth of May") is a yearly celebration
held on May 5 to celebrate Mexico’s victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 which was led by General
Ignacio Zaragoza.
Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín (1829 – 1862)
Anonymous paintings depicting the Battle of Puebla.
At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb was thrown at
a squad of policemen attempting to break up what had begun as
a peaceful labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire,
killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more.
The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers,
was organized by German-born labor radicals in protest of the
killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before.
