Today in History.....May 5

On this day in …

* 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the island of St. Helena

* 1862, Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeated French troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla

* 1891, Carnegie Hall (then named "Music Hall") had its opening night in New York City

* 1893, Wall Street stock prices took a sudden drop, sparking the second worst economic crisis in U.S. history

* 1904, Cy Young pitched major league baseball's first perfect game to lead the Boston Americans to a 3-0 win over Philadelphia

* 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces landed on the Philippine island of Corregidor

* 1945, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children were killed in Lakeview, Ore., when a Japanese balloon they had found in the woods exploded. They were listed as the only known World War II civilian fatalities in the continental United States

* 1955, West Germany became a sovereign state

* 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became America's first man in space in a brief, sub-orbital flight from Cape Canaveral

* 1980, a siege at the Iranian embassy in London by armed practitioners of that "religion pf peace" demanding the release of political prisoners in Iran ended as British commandos and police stormed the building. Nineteen hostages were rescued; two others had already been killed by their captors; four of the five hostage-takers were also killed

* 1985, President Reagan kept a promise to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl by leading a wreath-laying ceremony at the military cemetery in Bitburg

* 1996, Israel and the Palestinians began the final stage of their peace talks in Taba, Egypt. ALSO: The FBI released preliminary figures showing that serious crimes reported to police fell for the fourth straight year in 1995

* 2005, Tony Blair won a historic third term as Britain's prime minister, but his Labour Party suffered a sharply reduced parliamentary majority