On this date in history:

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

In 1847, the American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.

In 1862, Mexican troops, outnumbered 3-1, defeated invading French forces of Napoleon III.

In 1904, Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched Major League Baseball's first perfect game in a 3-0 win over Philadelphia.

In 1925, biology teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of Tennessee state laws.

In 1945, 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.

In 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the United States' first man in space in a brief sub-orbital flight from Cape Canaveral.

In 1981, imprisoned Irish-Catholic militant Bobby Sands died after refusing food for 66 days in protest of his imprisonment by British authorities as a criminal rather than a political prisoner.

In 1996, Jose Maria Aznar became prime minister of Spain.

In 2003, authorities said a two-day wave of tornadoes killed about 40 people in Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.

In 2005, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was elected to a third term.

In 2006, 10 U.S. soldiers were killed in the crash of a helicopter in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

In 2010, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua died after a long illness and Goodluck Jonathan, the vice president, assumed the presidency.

In 2012, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson won the Libertarian Party nomination for U.S. president.

In 2014, the World Health Organization declared the re-emergence of polio in several countries, including Pakistan, Syria, Cameroon and Nigeria, a worldwide health emergency, calling outbreaks of the disease an extraordinary event.

Copyright 2015 by United Press International