Beautiful Sunday weather is ahead for Whitewater. We’ll have partly sunny skies, a high of seventy-two, and light winds at five to ten miles per hour.
On this day in 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.”
Shepard wasn’t the first man in space, but Americans yet had reason to be proud of his accomplishment.
On 5.5.1862, Wisconsin soldiers fought in Virginia:
1862 – (Civil War) Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia
The Battle of Williamsburg was a key engagement in the Peninsular Campaign that began on March 17, 1862. The 5th Wisconsin Infantry and Company G of the 1st U.S. Sharpshooters participated in this battle. Outnumbered Confederate forces held off the Union advance long enough for the bulk of the Confederate army to continue its withdrawal toward the capital at Richmond.
Google’s daily question isn’t just about art, but an art collector: “In 1861, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte bought 11,835 artworks for the Louvre, including 641 paintings from what Italian art collector?”
May 5, 1961, was a Friday. I was a nine year old boy immersed in Superman, science fiction, and make believe. I still recall how excited and thrilled I was, as I sat, with my classmates, on the floor of the auditorium of 53rd Street School, in Milwaukee. For us 5th graders, it was a real treat to be able to stare up at the ancient 23″ black-and-white Westinghouse, and see an American in space! Gee, we were finally catching up with the Russians in the space race! Alan Shephard became the Superman for all American boys. I recall the the reporter was Frank McGee, and the coverage was on NBC, sponsored by Gulf Oil.