March 5

March 5 is the 64th day of the year (65th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 301 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Up to 1900

1046 – Naser Khosrow begins the seven-year Middle Eastern journey which he would later describe in his book Safarnameh.
1279 – The Livonian Order is defeated in the Battle of Aizkraukle by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1496 – England King Henry VII issued letters patern to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to discover of unknown lands.
1616 – Nicolaus Copernicus' book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Roman Catholic Church.
1689 – Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham is named Secretary of State for the Northern Department.
1766 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
1770 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War five years later.
1784 – Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney is named President of the Board of Trade.
1793 – French troops are defeated by Austrian forces and Liège is recaptured.
1811 – Peninsular War: A French force under command of Marshal Victor is heavily defeated while trying to prevent an English-Spanish-Portuguese army from ending the Siege of Cadiz in the Battle of Barrosa.
1821 – James Monroe is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
1824 – First Burmese War: The British officially declares war on Burma.
1836 – Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver (.34-caliber).
1842 – Over 500 Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas, briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande.
1848 – Louis Antoine Garnier-Pages is named French minister of Finance.
1849 – Zachary Taylor is inaugurated as the 12th President of the United States.
1850 – The Britannia Bridge, a railway bridge, linking the Isle of Anglesey to mainland Wales across the Menai Strait, opens.
1860 – Parma, Tuscany, Modena and Romagna vote in referenda to join Kingdom of Sardinia.
1861 – The "Stars and Bars" is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
1861 – Montgomery Blair is named 23rd Postmaster General of the United States by Abraham Lincoln
1868 – A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
1868 – Mefistofele, an opera by Arrigo Boito premieres at La Scala.
1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.
1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes is publicly inaugurated as the 19th President of the United States (he was privately inaugurated on March 3).
1878 – Manchester United Football Club is founded under the name of Newton Heath LYR FC.
1888 – Samuel Teleki and Ludwig von Hoehnal reach Lake Rudolf, present-day Lake Turkana in the Great Rift Valley. It lies in what is now Kenya.
1894 – Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery becomes First Lord of the Treasury.

1901 - 1950

1904 – Nikola Tesla, in Electrical World and Engineer, describes the process of ball lightning formation.
1905 – Russian troops begin to retreat from Mukden, Manchuria after losing 100,000 troops in three days.
1907 – The second Duma opens in St. Petersburg, Russia and 40,000 demonstrators have to be dispersed by Russian troops.
1912 – Italian forces are the first to use airships for military purposes, using them for reconnaissance behind Turkish lines.
1915 – World War I: LZ 33, a zeppelin, is damaged by enemy fire and stranded south of Ostend.
1916 – Spanish football club Real Club Deportivo Mallorca founded.
1916 – Off Santos, Brazil, Spanish luxury liner Principe de Asturias hits a rock and sinks within five minutes, killing 445 people.
1917 – Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
1918 – Bolshevist Russia moves the national capital from Petrograd to Moscow.
1919 – The main railway station in Helsinki opens.
1924 – Shefqet Verlaci becomes Prime Minister of Albania.
1929 – LanChile airline begins operations.
1931 – Daniel Salamanca Urey is named President of Bolivia.
1933 – Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday", closing all United States banks and freezing all financial transactions.
1933 – In Germany, the Nazis win 44 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections.
1936 – First flight of fighter airplane Spitfire Type 300.
1940 – Members of Soviet politbiuro sign an order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intelligentsia, including 22000 Polish POW, known also as Katyn massacre.
1943 – First flight of Gloster Meteor jet aircraft in Britain.
1946 – Winston Churchill uses the phrase "Iron Curtain" in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.
1946 – The Hungarian Communists and Social Democrats co-found the left bloc.
1948 – US rocket flies a record 4800 km/h to 126 km height.
1949 – The Jharkhand Party is founded in India.

1951 - 2000

1953 – Both Josef Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev die in Soviet Union.
1955 – President of Lithuania, Antanas Merkys dies, after having been imprisoned and deported to the Soviet Union.
1956 – Ernie Terrell becomes the WBA world heavyweight champion, beating Eddie Machen.
1956 – "King Kong" first televised.
1958 – Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is established.
1958 – Explorer 2 spacecraft launches, fails to reach Earth orbit.
1960 – Alberto Korda takes the famous "Guerrillero Heroico" photograph of Che Guevara.
1960 – Elvis Presley is discharged from a 2-year hitch in the United States Army.
1963 – Country singer Patsy Cline dies in a plane crash.
1964 – Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr announces a baseball team is moving there.
1964 – Ceylon declares emergency crisis due to unrest.
1965 – First performance of Walter Piston's Eighth Symphony.
1966 – A BOAC Boeing 707 jet crashes on Mount Fuji, Japan killing 124
1966 – In Luxembourg, Udo Jürgens wins the eleventh Eurovision Song Contest for Austria.
1966 – Bob Seagren vaults 5.19m, an indoor world record.
1968 – US launches Solar Explorer B, aka Explorer 37 from Wallops Island to study the Sun.
1970 – A nuclear non-proliferation treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations.
1970 – Dubnium atoms first detected conclusively.
1971 – First live performance of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."
1973 – Two Spanish aircraft collide in mid-air over France, killing 68 people.
1973 – Donald DeFreeze, future Symbionese Liberation Army leader, escapes from Vacaville Prison.
1974 – Yom Kippur War: Israeli forces withdrew from the west bank of the Suez Canal.
1974 – "Candide", by Leonard Bernstein, opens at Broadway Theatre in NYC for 740 performances.
1976 – British pound falls below $2 US for the first time.
1978 – Landsat 3 is launched from Vandenberg AFB in California.
1979 – Detection equipment picks up a gamma ray burst originating from the Large Magellanic Cloud, leading to the discovery of soft gamma repeaters.
1979 – Voyager 1's closest approach to Jupiter, 172000 miles.
1980 – Earth satellites record gamma rays from remnants of supernova N-49.
1981 – Cannibal Alferd Packer pardoned posthumously.
1982 – SNL star John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in his hotel room.
1982 – Venera 14, a Soviet satellite arrives at the planet Venus.
1983 – Bob Hawke becomes Australian prime minister after defeating Malcolm Fraser in Australian elections.
1983 – In the oldest regular match in international rugby union, Scotland achieves its most recent away win over England to-date, winning 22–12 at Twickenham Stadium in London.
1984 – 6,000 miners in the United Kingdom begin their strike at Cortonwood Colliery.
1985 – The body of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena is found.
1988 – Constitution of Turks and Caicos Islands restored and revised.
1991 – Iraq releases all Gulf War prisoners
1993 – Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from international competition for life after testing positive for banned substances for the second time.
1998 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water to support a human colony.
1998 – NASA announces the choice of United States Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins as the first woman commander of a space shuttle mission.
1999 – Paul Okalik is elected first Premier of Nunavut.

From 2001

2001 – In Mecca, 35 Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
2001 – In Santee, California, a school massacre occurs at Santana High School, leaving 2 dead and 15 wounded.
2002 – MTV begins airing The Osbournes.
2003 – University of Manchester and UMIST announce agreement to merge operations.
2003 – Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks provokes controversy in the U.S. by stating that the band was "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."
2003 – Nature withdraws several papers as a result of the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal.
2006 – The BBC's major nature documentary series "Planet Earth" is broadcast for the first time.
2013 – President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez dies, after a Presidency of over 14 years, of complications from cancer.

Births

Up to 1800

1133 – King Henry II of England (d. 1189)
1324 – King David II of Scotland (d. 1371)
1326 – King Louis I of Hungary (d. 1382)
1512 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish map maker (d. 1594)
1563 – John Coke, English politician (d. 1644)
1575 – William Oughtred, English mathematician (d. 1660)
1585 – John George I, Elector of Saxony (d. 1656)
1658 – Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, French explorer (d. 1730)
1685 – George Frideric Handel, German composer (d. 1759)
1693 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian (d. 1754)
1696 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)
1703 – Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, Russian poet (d. 1768)
1713 – Edward Cornwallis, English military officer (d. 1776)
1713 – Frederick Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1783)
1723 – Princess Mary of Great Britain (d. 1773)
1739 – Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, American physician and statesman (d. 1819)
1756 – Nathaniel Alexander, 13th Governor of North Carolina (d. 1808)
1794 – Jacques Babinet, French physicist (d. 1872)

1801 – 1900

1815 – John Wentworth, American politician (d. 1888)
1832 – Isaac Israel Hayes, American physician and polar explorer (d. 1881)
1836 – Charles Goodnight, American cattle rancher (d. 1929)
1853 – Howard Pyle, American writer and illustrator (d. 1911)
1855 – Archduchess Sophie of Austria (d. 1857)
1858 – José Relvas, Prime Minister of Portugal (d. 1929)
1862 – Siegbert Tarrasch, German chess player (d. 1934)
1867 – Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, Premier of Quebec (d. 1952)
1869 – Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal (d. 1952)
1870 – Frank Norris, American writer (d. 1902)
1871 – Rosa Luxemburg, German Socialist revolutionary (d. 1919)
1873 – Olav Bjaaland, Norwegian explorer and cross-country skier (d. 1961)
1874 – Henry Travers, British actor (d. 1965)
1879 – William Henry Beveridge, British economist (d. 1963)
1882 – Arthur Hussey, American golfer (d. 1915)
1886 – Dong Biwu, Chinese politician (d. 1975)
1887 – Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer (d. 1959)
1888 – Jeff Tesreau, American baseball player (d. 1946)
1890 – Wilhelm Boden, German politician (d. 1961)
1893 – Konstantin Muraviev, Prime Minister of Bulgaria (d. 1973)
1897 – Set Persson, Swedish Communist politician (d. 1960)
1898 – Misao Okawa, Japanese supercentenarian, oldest-living person (d. 2015)
1898 – Soong May-ling, First Lady of the Republic of China (d. 2003)
1898 – Zhou Enlai, Chinese Communist politician (d. 1976)
1900 – Anna Henderson, American supercentenarian (d. 2014)

Deaths

Up to 1900

254 – Pope Lucius I (b. 200)
1534 – Antonio da Correggio, Italian painter (b. 1489)
1539 – Nuno da Cunha, Portuguese admiral and politician (b. 1487)
1592 – Michael Coxcie, Flemish painter (b. 1499)
1611 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1533)
1622 – Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma (b. 1569)
1695 – Henry Wharton, English writer (b. 1664)
1770 – Crispus Attucks, American revolutionary figure
1776 – Yeongjo of Joseon of Korea (b. 1694)
1778 – Thomas Arne, English composer (b. 1710)
1815 – Franz Mesmer, German physician and astrologer (b. 1734)
1827 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician (b. 1749)
1827 – Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist and inventor (b. 1745)
1895 – Nikolai Leskov, Russian writer (b. 1831)

1901 – 2000

1925 – Jonas Jensen, Danish mathematician (b. 1859)
1926 – Clement Ader, French engineer (b. 1841)
1929 – David Dunbar Buick, Scottish-born American engineer, inventor and industrialist (b. 1854)
1940 – Cai Yuanpei, Chinese educator (b. 1868)
1944 – Max Jacob, French poet and writer (b. 1876)
1947 – Alfredo Casella, Italian composer (b. 1883)
1950 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist (b. 1868)
1953 – Herman J. Mankiewicz, American screenwriter (b. 1897)
1953 – Sergei Prokofiev, Russian composer (b. 1891)
1953 – Joseph Stalin, Georgian leader of the Soviet Union (b. 1879)
1955 – Antanas Merkys, Lithuanian politician (b. 1888)
1963 – Patsy Cline, American singer (b. 1932)
1963 – Cowboy Copas, American singer (b. 1913)
1963 – Hawkshaw Hawkins, American singer (b. 1921)
1965 – Chen Cheng, Chinese politician (b. 1897)
1965 – Pepper Martin, American baseball player (b. 1904)
1966 – Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet (b. 1889)
1967 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Iranian Prime Minister (b. 1882)
1967 – Georges Vanier, 19th Governor General of Canada (b. 1888)
1974 – Sol Hurok, American impresario (b. 1888)
1976 – Otto Tief, Prime Minister of Estonia (b. 1889)
1977 – Tom Pryce, Welsh racing driver (b. 1949)
1980 – Winifred Wagner, German opera producer (b. 1897)
1980 – Jay Silverheels, Canadian actor (b. 1912)
1982 – John Belushi, American actor (b. 1949)
1984 – Pierre Cochereau, French organist and composer (b. 1924)
1984 – Tito Cobbi, Italian baritone (b. 1915)
1990 – Edmund Conen, German footballer (b. 1914)
1990 – Gary Merrill, American actor (b. 1915)
1995 – Vivian Stanshall, British musician (b. 1943)
1999 – Richard Kiley, American actor (b. 1922)
2000 – Lolo Ferrari, French dancer, singer and pornographic actress (b. 1963)

From 2001

2004 – Masanori Tokita, Japanese footballer (b. 1925)
2006 – Milan Babic, Serbian politician (b. 1956)
2008 – Joseph Weizenbaum, German-American computer science professor (b. 1923)
2010 – Philip Langridge, English operatic tenor (b. 1939)
2011 – Alberto Granado, Argentine biochemist, writer and travel companion of Che Guevara (b. 1922)
2012 – Robert B. Sherman, American songwriter (b. 1925)
2013 – Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela (b. 1954)
2013 – Paul Bearer, American professional wrestler and manager (b. 1954)
2013 – Dieter Pfaff, German actor (b. 1947)
2014 – Leopoldo Maria Panero, Spanish poet (b. 1948)
2014 – Geoff Edwards, American actor and presenter (b. 1931)
2015 – Edward Egan, American cardinal (b. 1932)
2015 – Jim McCann, Irish musician (b. 1944)
2015 – Vlada Divljan, Serbian musician (b. 1958)
2016 – Hassan al-Turabi, Sudanese religious and political leader (b. 1932)
2016 – Ray Tomlinson, American computer programmer (b. 1941)
2016 – Al Wistert, American football player (b. 1920)
2016 – Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Austrian cellist (b. 1929)
2016 – James Douglas, American actor (b. 1929)
2017 – Anthony C. Beilenson, American politician (b. 1932)
2017 – Douglas Henry, American politician (b. 1926)
2017 – Florence S. Jacobsen, American Mormon leader and missionary (b. 1913)
2017 – Jay Lynch, American cartoonist (b. 1945)
2018 – Trevor Baylis, British inventor (b. 1937)
2018 – John Hall Buchanan Jr., American politician (b. 1928)
2018 – Tomas Aguon Camacho, Northern Marianas Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1933)
2018 – Kjerstin Dellert, Swedish opera singer (b. 1925)
2018 – André S. Labarthe, French actor and film director (b. 1931)
2018 – Uri Lubrani, Israeli diplomat and military official (b. 1926)
2018 – Jam Saqi, Pakistani politician (b. 1944)
2018 – Helmut Maucher, German businessman (b. 1927)
2018 – Stephan Tanneberger, German oncologist and chemist (b. 1935)
2018 – Hayden White, American historian (b. 1928)
2019 – Chu Shijian, Chinese businessman (b. 1928)
2019 – Jacques Loussier, French businessman (b. 1934)

Observances

Custom Chief's Day (Vanuatu)
Lei Feng Day (China)
National Tree Planting Day (Iran)
St. Piran's Day (Cornwall)

March 5

Events

Up to 1900

1901 - 1950

1951 - 2000

From 2001

Births

Up to 1800

1801 – 1900

1901 - 1950

1951 – 1975

From 1976

Deaths

Up to 1900

1901 – 2000

From 2001

Observances