Percy George Smith (born 1868)

In 1868, in the year that Percy George Smith was born, on January 9th, Great Britain ended the practice of transporting its prisoners to Australia. It ended with the arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia. The trip took 89 days and there were 62 Fenians - people fighting for a free Ireland - among the transportees.

In 1875, on May 17th, Aristides was the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby. It was the first year of the "The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports" - begun by Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., the grandson of William Clark, the explorer.

In 1929, on March 4th, Herbert Hoover became the 31st President of the United States. Early in his presidency, the October stock market crash - "Black Tuesday" - occurred, which lead to the Great Depression. None of his economic policies were able to make a dent in the Depression. This lead to one term and the election of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt winning the 1933 election in a landslide.

In 1961, on May 5th, Navy Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr., made the first manned Project Mercury flight, MR-3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. He was the second man to go into space, the first was Yuri Gagarin - a Soviet cosmonaut.

In 1996, on July 5th, the first cloned mammal - "Dolly the Sheep" - was born in Scotland. She had three mothers. Dolly lived to be 6 years old and produced 6 lambs. Since, other sheep have been cloned as well as horses, pigs, deer, and bulls.