May 5

1809: Mary Kies was awarded the first patent (1041X, destroyed in 1936 fire) to go to a woman, for a technique for weaving straw with silk and thread. 1834: William Whewell wrote a letter to Michael Faraday suggesting the names Anode and Cathode in describing the process of electrolysis. 1861: Peter Hewitt, inventor of the mercury vapor lamp, was born. 1917: Eugene Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service. 1945: Holland and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control. 1945: The only WW II deaths of civilians on the mainland of the U.S. resulted from a Japanese bomb dropped over Gearhart Mountain, Oregon by an unmanned balloon. 1961: Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he made a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. 2000: A conjunction of the 5 bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn occurred. 2007: Theodore Maiman, who invented the (ruby) laser, died.