Dear Kid,

It’s Cinco de Mayo and there is a lot to celebrate.

In 1260, Kublai Khan became the ruler of the Mongol Empire. It’s not clear that fair and democratic elections were held (and by “not clear” I mean they weren’t). But for Kublai and his campaign team, taking over meant no more door-to-door campaigning which probably bummed out Kublai, but undoubtedly made Mrs. Kublai pretty happy.

In 1494, Christopher Columbus spied Jamaica mon. He did not pick up a native accent.

In 1762, Prussia and Russia signed a peace treaty ending the Seven Years War. Putin’s predecessors ignore the terms.

In 1809, Mary Kies becomes the first woman issued a US patent for weaving straw. If she had figured out how to weave straw into gold more people would know about her.

In 1865, the first train robbery in the US took place in North Bend Ohio. This was not a banner day for North Bend, but the robbers probably felt pretty good about it.

In 1891, Music Hall (later renamed Carnegie Hall) opens giving birth to the joke “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice.”

In 1930, Amy Johnson took off on her flight from England to Australia (the first woman to make the flight solo). In other flying news, Jesse Owens sets the long jump record at 26’ 8 ½” in 1935. And then in 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Extra points if you know the name of the craft he flew in.

Continuing with spacey events, the Iridium-1 ( of the Delta 2 program) launched successfully on May 5, 1997, and in 2000 there was a conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and our Moon (which means they all lined up and which is therefore pretty rare).

Hope you have a high flying day.

Love, Mom

Riding in the Freedom 7 space capsule, Shepard was the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes, reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere.